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In a world increasingly tech dependent, consumers still respond to seeing a friendly face. One of the best ways to show your clients the human side of your business is to include video in to your marketing efforts. We've talked before about how video and email marketing go together like bread and butter, but here are some tips on how to best integrate video into your e-newsletters and email marketing campaigns. 

Don't bury the lead: 

Studies show videos lose consumers' interests within 60 seconds. If you have something important to say, do it fast. Lead with the most important information and let the rest fall into place naturally. If you're announcing a new product line, don't tease it with a 30 second intro, go ahead and say what it is you're focusing on and then go into more depth on it. Don't worry about being flashy or artistic, a simple video of a person standing in front of a plain backdrop can be just as effective as a Flash-filled animation. 

Fill it with facts: 

Consumers will devote more time to a video when it gives them actual information instead of just wasting their time with unimportant details. Unlike traditional e-newsletters, consumers can't skim through and pick out the parts important to them. With a video, they can either listen to everything you have to say, or click away. There's no equivalent to subheads in a video, so save the minute descriptions for a different format, or at least put it at the end. Once you start going into product dimensions, you're likely to lose viewers. Remember - you only have 60 seconds, and each second matters! 

Take a shot: 

You don't need thousands of dollars worth of equipment just to try out video email marketing. If you have a laptop with a webcam and a decent microphone, you can easily film it yourself. Just look directly at the camera and speak in a natural voice. Be confident in what you're saying, but not so confident you begin channeling Billy Mays. Once you're satisfied with the quality of your video, consider where it's going to live on the Internet. Having a dedicated landing page will let you see how many people are coming to your site exclusively because of the video. It will also let consumers follow a logical path from their first moment of engagement to their final conversion. 

Video email marketing can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. It's important to remember that, like with any tool, it can't stand alone. Using a variety of approaches in e-newsletters can keep your content fresh and exciting for consumers. 

I get asked a lot if Delivra sells email addresses.  The short answer is NO.  We are a permission based email service provider - this means you can only send to opted-in email addresses through our system.  However, since I talk to thousands of people, some have experience with purchasing email addresses.  Allow me to share some of their wisdom:

If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I've heard prices ranging from pennies to several dollars per email address.  What seems consistent is the cheaper the price, the less effective the emails are.  

Ask, "how are you going to send to the recipients?"
Apparently, there are companies who will sell you the email addresses but won't send to them.  This should be a red flag in my book.  It probably means the company knows the email addresses are bogus.  They don't care though because by the time you figure this out, they have already cashed your check.

If the company is going to send to the recipients, how are they going to get in the inbox?
Just because a company will send to the recipients, doesn't mean your out of the woods.  Yes, typically the emails they are sending to are opted-in.  But they aren't opted-in to receive emails from you.   These are generally recipients who didn't check or uncheck the box that says "Please send me emails from your affiliates".  This opens the floodgates for the recipient to receive emails from ANYONE.  Once they receive your email, they won't know you, and will typically mark your message as spam.  This hurts not only you, but also the sender.  Their IP reputations are usually so shot, the message won't even get into the inbox.

My open rate is WHAT?!
We've all heard the industry average open rate is around 20%-25%.  That's when you are applying email best practices.  Purchasing a list is definitely not email best practice.  So what should the open rate be for these types of engagements?  I've heard numbers ranging from 0%-2%.  And even though they opened it, it doesn't mean the recipient is engaged...more like enraged - which will lead to that person marking your message as spam (see above).  

I understand that companies want to grow their list.  There are lots of good ways to do just that.  I just don't think purchasing a list is one of those ways.  If you'd like to find out how Delivra can help grow your list (the right way), give us a shout, we'll be glad to help!

Here's a picture of some puppies I found on the internet:

Creating segments can be tricky when you aren't directly selling online or don't have specific preferences for clients to choose from. If you have been using an email marketing agency like Delivra, then you already have exactly what you need to get started. Create activity based segments. Start out by splitting up your audience based on the following criteria:

No activity (No Engagement)- Never opened, never clicked a link to learn more, or never forwarded or shared with any friends. These people have done nothing with your emails, ever.

No recent activity (Past Engagement)- These members were interested at one time. The time frame you use is up to you, but my recommendation is to keep it under 90 days or three emails. If there has been no action in 90 days or three emails, your members should be in this segment.

Members who have opened an email (Moderate Engagement)- These members have opened an email in the same time frame you set above.

Members who have clicked through (High Engagement)- These members are your most engaged audience. They appreciate and somehow use the content you are sending them.

Start out by sending the same content to each segment. After you establish your baseline then start targeting these groups in unique ways. What ways do you segment your audience?

Still need help identifying your audience for more targeted email campaigns? Check out 3 Segmentation tips for B2B Email Marketers and 5 Segmentation Ideas for 2012. Need one-on-one help? Schedule a consultation with Delivra.

More than two-thirds of business leaders (68%) say they plan to integrate social media with their email marketing efforts in 2012 - Marketingprofs.com study released on December 12, 2011

Most companies utilize email marketing and social media in their marketing campaigns, but separately and consequently miss out on the huge benefits of integrating the two. While email gives you an intimate level of contact with your customers, social media is a public forum. Anyone who has something to say can join the stream of conversation in social media. It shares conversations and builds relationships. Email marketing can take these conversations to the next level. 

Integrating social media with email marketing can help you reach out to new customers and prospects. As more people share your email, you also get a chance to connect with new propsects who are interested in you. Once you know who your key influencers are, you can send dedicated email campaigns to them. 

What's the first step? Start by including social icons to your email campaigns. By adding these icons you make it easy for your customers to share your email content with their 'friends'. Another way is by sharing your emails with your social network. This way you can reach a wider audience, while sending email makes you reach only the limited number of people in your list. You can ask customers to share your email within their network. 

When you keep changing the way you connect with your audience it makes them stop and take notice. You can use social media to engage in conversations and pique the interest of your potential customers. Now invite them to your website where they can learn more about you and your products. By leveraging the power of social media you can extend the reach of your email campaigns. 

Sources: 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-ways-to-integrate-email-and-social-media-marketing/

http://www.esoftload.info/marrying-email-marketing-to-social-networking

http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/get-more-customers/pbsmartadvice/social-media-and-email-marketing-improving-roi/

My colleagues Doug, Lavon and I traveled to sunny Hollywood, FL last week for the ever-exciting Email Evolution Conference sponsored by the EEC. In her last blog post, Lavon described it as an "email pep rally" and she's spot on.

There were three extremely prominent themes for this year's conference that I picked up on:

1. Rededication to Email Marketing Fundamentals
2. Mobile Marketing
3. Email Marketers are FUN people! (an observation, really)

It's somewhat of an oxymoron to say marketers need to rededicate themselves to email marketing fundamentals and yet have their eye on the new "shiny object" which is mobile, but that's reality. Marketers are faced with these priorities every day.

The key then is to tackle realistic, bite-sized projects to move you closer to your overall goal. (you do have email marketing goals, right?)  It's unrealistic to think you'll return from a conference to employ every single tactic you fell in love with. And, sometimes tactics you love may not be right for your space.

So, here are my top three realistic takeaways and tactics from the conference:

• If you've not read Seth Godin's Permission Marketing since 1999 or ever- do it NOW!
• Budget for an email audit. If you have internal analysts and email experts who can block off a week or more for an email audit- Bravo, you are among the very fortunate. For most marketers, email is just one of the many tactics which fall under the job description. If that's the case, make sure to carve off some budget for an indepth email analysis each year.
  An email analysis should paint a clear picture of how you're performing in all key areas of email marketing (i.e.List Growth, List Health, Engagement, Deliverability, Analytics and ROI) as well as clear recommendations for improvement and measurement.
• Mobile adoption in unavoidable. According to Jessica Harley from GiltGroup, over half of their email is opened on a mobile device. Wow! How many of you know what percentage of your subscribers are viewing your emails via mobile (this includes tablets)? If you don't know, find out now.

Intimately knowing the successes and deficiency of your email program will enable you to employ more advanced -shinier- tactics. For more ideas and themes from the conference check out the full agenda, including my presentation called, Combining Text and Traditional Marketing Channels to Boost Subscribers and Sales. We were very lucky to have our wonderful client, Anthony Scott with us from the Eiteljorg Museum to present their personal story with Text 2 Subscribe.

Until next year EEC...

It's that time of year again - Valentine's Day. For many, it's filled with roses, boxes of candy, and cards telling that someone special how much they mean to you. You wouldn't send those things to someone who ignored you, would you? You would not put in the effort to show them how much they meant to you if they were not going to return it, right?

Should you consider having this same mindset when thinking about your email subscribers? Perhaps. 

An unengaged subscriber is one who does not engage with the email campaigns you send. They don't open your emails let alone click through them. Based on their zero engagement with your emails they are likely not interested in receiving what you are sending. 

So, the question is? Should you continue to send to these people? My suggestion is: 

1) Work with an email marketing agency to create a re-engagement email campaign. Send to everyone that is unengaged, encouraging them to start engaging with your emails. This might include offering an incentive to motivate them to come back. 

2) If they responded...great!  Try to send them an email reminder to update their preferences to determine how often they would like to hear from you. Then start creating those campaigns with the idea they may still need to be motivated to open and click through your emails with catchy subject lines, bold copy, or more incentives. 

3) If they didn't respond? Perhaps it's time to suppress them from future mailings.  It might help your statistics and deliverability to not send to these people. However, you might want to consider continuing to send to them for the off chance THIS time will be the time they open, click through, and buy. 

It's a judgment call. To send flowers or not to send flowers? That is the question :-) 

Gosh, it has been a while since my last post... but things have been a little busy at Delivra. And, there's one thing in particular making us smile.

For the past couple of months, we've been focusing on our own email marketing program. As a best practice, we believe it's very important to do a data clean-up every year, as well as evaluate all email content being sent. What was a relevant email schedule last year (or even last month) may not be so relevant anymore, and this is exactly what we found.

To ensure our data was clean, we did a re-engagement email campaign to our subscribers. This consisted of a few emails over the course of three weeks which asked email subscribers to update their preferences.




Once we had the data in place, we were ready to start drafting content and send schedules. One of our goals for this process was to do a better job incorporating highly relevant and personalized content in our emails.

Delivra's email marketing software has a feature called Conditional Content. What this feature allows us to do is create one email and swap out pieces of content or images based on data unique to the recipient.

For our own emails, we decided to use this feature to swap out Account Owner information. Many of our retail clients use this feature to swap out product information based on things like region, buying behavior, age, interests, occupation...the sky is the limit! Here's an example of what our email looked like:



Overall, the email "felt" good but ultimately, it's up to the data to let us know how we performed.  Some of the basic metrics we look at:

• Open Rate
• Click-through Rate
• Engagement Score
• Unsubscribes

We look at these metrics compared to data collected from previous mailings, we call these baseline metrics. Having these metrics are super important when you change any aspect of your strategy.

Finally, we can't forget the ultimate intent of the email. Our goal for this particular email was to raise awareness about new software features and gauge interest among our client base. In order to collect this data, we created a unique form-submit landing page that funneled info into Salesforce, our CRM. As the clients filled out the form, they were immediately put in the appropriate campaign and their Account Owner was notified.

Such a simple user experience, and yet, it allowed us to gather feature interest and another layer of data to determine the success of the mailing.

So, what were the results of our efforts?

• 14% increase in Open Rate
• Doubled our Click-through Rate
• 5% Conversion Rate for people interested in new features.

All of this goes to show that with a little effort and a lot of thought, you can take an existing list and re-invent results.

 As the Super Bowl makes its way to Indy, it's hard to miss the preparations taking place around the city. Personally, I can't wait to see how well Indy hosts such an event. As an email marketer, are you trying to get in on the Super Bowl action too by sending out an email to your subscribers about the big game? 

Papa John's is. As a sponsor of the NFL, it's' not a huge surprise they are, but I was interested in how they were incorporating the email aspect. (For full details about the giveaway, click here to read the full article from PizzaMarketplace.com.) In short, they are doing a Coin Toss Experience with fans where America guesses whether the coin toss will result in Heads or Tails. If they get it right, everyone enrolled in their Papa Rewards program will receive an email with instructions on how to claim their reward. 

Planning on sending out a Super Bowl email? Here are a couple of things to keep in mind: 

1. Make it fun. You are going to be in the inbox with a lot of competition. Not that this, in particular, is anything new, but you'll be competing with several other companies trying to get a piece of the Super Bowl pie. 

2. Rewards. To keep people engaged with your email through the Super Bowl and beyond, include a reward. Papa John's is engaging their audience by incorporating a poll, a reward, and a follow-up email. 

3. Buzz. Once you have established your contest, reward, or poll, etc, start creating some buzz around it. Share the news on social media, blog about it, add a CTA on your website, and send reminder emails. Talk it up! 

4. Test, test, test. You'd hate for a big email campaign around the Super Bowl to flop, wouldn't you? Be sure to test first. 

What examples have you seen of Super Bowl emails? I'm always interested, so send them my way! 

IBM recently unveiled another of their Five-in-Five series. If you've never heard of it, IBM makes an annual prediction of five trends or innovations that will alter the modern technological landscape within the next five years.

After predicting increased biometric security and actual mind reading powers, the last point in the series caught my eye: We're going to see the end of impersonal email.

Due to the amount of data that can be stored and analyzed quickly, every single mailing can, and will be, personalized not just to a recipient, but personalized towards what the recipient will find most relevant.

An article discussing the Five-in-Five series analyzed an opt-in procedure categorizing recipients' email request based on their driving, shopping, and eating schedules. Emails were specifically targeted to individuals based not only on their personal history, but also targeted based on when they were most likely to ‘need’ those emails, i.e. before leaving the house to go to the mall or deciding where they should meet with friends for lunch.

Delivra’s demographic fields allow our customers the ability to send email tailored personally to the recipient, and to the recipient’s interests. How much do you know about your recipients? How engaged are they? Are you utilizing all of the demographic fields available to better target your email campaigns?

The other day, I went to the store and purchased exactly 3 items.  What I received in return was a receipt that was 3 feet long.  It got me thinking, when you get an email, how far down are you willing to scroll.  I don't know what the email marketing best practices are for the maximum length of an email, but I know how far I'm willing to scroll - NONE!  A lot of Delivra's customers use landing pages they have created in our system or anchor links to jump down to the relevant content.  

Utilizing just these 2 things will increase your overall email clicks.  After all, we are trying to get the best email engagement and at the same time prevent your recipients from getting carpal tunnel. 

Here is a picture of some holiday puppies I found on the internet!

Today's post is from Robby Slaughter of Slaughter Development, a business process improvement consulting firm here in Indianapolis.

Email marketing is absolutely crucial to your business. I get it. And it's the holidays, and you feel the need to use your email marketing platform to reach out to customers with a greeting.

That's great. I feel you. But for the love of pete, please stop the holiday card madness!

You know what I'm talking about: the generic messages that just read "Happy Holidays from ABC Corporation!" Do you have any idea how many of those I'm going to receive today?

Answer: A half dozen or more.

Here's what I think when I receive a "seasons greetings" email from you that says little more than just "seasons greetings":

• You've got email marketing software, but you don't know how to use it
• You don't know what to say, so you're just copying everyone else
• You count every email open as a "win", no matter how instantaneous the deletion.

Okay, that's a little brutal. Maybe I need to calm down a bit.

This is not a case of the bah-humbugs. I do like the holiday season. And I want to hear stories about what your company is up to. Maybe you are raising money for some important cause. Maybe your employees are taking some interesting vacations. Really, telling me anything beyond just general well-wishes is going to be interesting.

In fact: being interesting is the secret to email engagement. You can pique my interest in many different ways. Maybe it's a special offer. Perhaps it's a distinctive story. No matter what you choose to do, if you're different than every other message in my inbox, I'm more likely to read it.

If I could sum up all email marketing best practices in just one word, I'd choose "unique." If your message could only have been sent from your company, it's got a good chance of real engagement. Keep this in mind, not just for the season, but for your email marketing strategy year-round.

Happy Holidays!

This week, the Email Experience Council and Sponsor, StrongMail, released the results of its "2012 Marketing Trends" survey which provides insight into how businesses plan to budget and prioritize marketing dollars in the New Year. Conducted in November 2011, 938 business leaders participated in the global survey. 

The 2012 Marketing Trends Survey highlights: 

• 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012
• 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 54% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied) 
• 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012;
• 43% cite lack of resources/staff as primary email marketing challenge; 
• 40% cite content management as primary email marketing challenge; 
• 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email marketing initiative; 
• 44% cite improving segmentation/targeting as a top initiative; 
• 32% cite growing opt-in email lists as a top initiative; 
• 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 45% with mobile; 17% with search 

2012 is a new year but the survey, for me, merely reinforced what I hear regularly from staff, clients and prospects. 

Recently Ally posted a blog about an amazing customer service experience she received. She explained how well the situation was handled by the company and how they kept her best interest as a customer in mind. The story I'm about to share is the exact opposite of that.

I have been shopping at a well known nationwide video game retail establishment for years. I have never run into any significant problems until recently. Last year about this time, they implemented power up cards for an annual fee of 15 dollars. These cards consist of a way to earn points by trading in games, buying games, etc... These points can be used to receive discounts when you make purchases as well. I purchased one of the cards.

Towards the end of the year, after my purchase, I started to become inundated with emails on a daily basis from this retailer. At first, I figured it'd just be easy enough to delete them each day and be done with it. A couple weeks later I got tired of dealing with it so I decided to unsubscribe from their mailings. The first thing that should be noted is nowhere in their mailings does it give you the option to unsubscribe. The only option it provides is to change your preferences. Working in e-mail marketing on a daily basis, this immediately threw up a red flag. I clicked on the preferences link but found no option to completely unsubscribe from their mailings. After digging a little deeper into the preferences, I finally found an option to fully unsubscribe. When I selected this option, I received a message stating it will more than likely take up to 2 weeks to fully unsubscribe me. I'm was not happy with this response but at least the mailings would stop.

The time comes when my card expires and I'm asked if I want to renew by the store manager. I decided to go ahead and renew because I think everything is fine until I go to use the renewed card. I'm told by the in store manager my card is not being accepted by their system. They provide me with a customer service number to call and tell me it should be an easy fix and they probably just have some incorrect information in their computers.

I call the customer service line and after waiting almost 45 minutes, I get through to a representative and tell him what is going on. He proceeds to put me on hold for another 15 minutes and then comes back to tell me he realizes what happened. He tells me I chose to unsubscribe from all of their mailings which in turn apparently cancelled my card...a card which I paid for and has absolutely nothing to do with the mailings they send me. I don't agree with the situation but tell him to opt me back in so my card can be reactivated. He says that's not an option and the only way I can activate my card is to purchase a new one. WHAT?! I ask nicely to speak with a manager and he lets me know none are available at this time so I was sent to a voicemail where I left my number...no call back.

After all this has taken place, I decide to go to the retail store and talk to the manager who I've known for many years. He is shocked by what I've been told and is kind of enough to give me a card for free and also took the time to call customer service while I was in the store(they have a direct line with no wait time.) The customer service rep relays the same information to the manager and informs him that even though they have activated a new card for me, I've lost ALL my points I have earned over the years, and they had no way of getting them back. The manager assured me he will be emailing their district manager about my situation, but I have no faith anything positive will come out of it.

I am extremely grateful for the extra steps the store manager took. He went above and beyond his responsibilities to assist me in any way possible. From a corporate standpoint however, never in my life have I felt so insignificant or helpless as a customer. I will never purchase anything from this company again. Had they just handled this situation in a professional manner, I wouldn't be writing this blog and they wouldn't be losing business from a faithful customer who has been purchasing from them for years.

At Delivra we strive to provide the best customer service possible to our clients. We will always take into account the issues you are experiencing and will do our best to go above and beyond to satisfy your needs and provide you with a prompt and satisfactory resolution. And if you're looking for help with issues such as setting the right expectations, monitoring engagement/complaints for burn-out, or providing recipients with an easy and friendly method of controlling their email preferences, just let us know. We're glad to help.

I was asked this morning "why is email marketing a great tool for businesses?" Wow - where do you begin? But, my answer remains consistent, email marketing is still one of the most powerful 1:1 communication channels a marketer has at their disposal.

Think about it... start making a mental list of all the communication channels available to you:

• Online (Website and Blog)
• Face to Face
• Telephone
• Direct Mail
• Social Media
• Brick and Mortar
• Email
• Other?

Aside from picking up the telephone or having a face-to-face meeting, what other channel can provide real-time, personal, 1:1 communication? Even direct messaging via social media relies on email to deliver the communication.

But, the reality is, this channel is a cluttered one. The key to email marketing success is to respect the people you communicate with. Gone are the days where success is measured by the volume of your list or how many emails you can send in a given day. That's just spam.

Successful email marketers invest time, lots of time, segmenting their lists and developing content to resonate with their audience. These marketers are quick to purge disengaged email addresses and are quick to reward engagement.

So while email still remains a great 1:1 communication tool for businesses, the qualifications for success have absolutely changed. Don't waste this powerful channel on an unreemarkable email.

Web forms and filling out cards in order to obtain subscribers are effective methods under certain circumstances; however, text-to-subscribe allows clients to reach your audience more efficiently and have them respond quickly.

Events or Trade Shows: Last February we covered trade show rules of engagement, if you missed that post you may want to check that out. Trade shows are a great opportunity to grow your email subscriber list and we now have a couple of new tools to enhance your trade show email plan. Bonus: Set up a welcome message so as soon as they sign up via text they receive their first email explaining who you are and what information they have signed up for.

Retail Store: Having a sign up for text-to-subscribe gives your shoppers an opportunity to sign up for your special offers and at the same time can offer them a discount on their in-store purchase. It's a win-win for you and your shopper.

Print Ad, Direct Mail Piece, Banner: Adding sign up info to your print ad or direct mail piece using text to subscribe gives your new subscriber an opportunity to sign up right now rather than waiting until they get online later.

Announcements: Do you purchase advertising from your local sports team? Next time you change that copy include a brief snippet on how to sign up to receive information from you too.

Speaking Engagements: Do you give a lot of presentations? Including text to subscribe information at the end of your presentation will give your audience members an easy way to sign up for future newsletters.

Text-to-subscribe offers you and your future subscribers an easy, accurate and immediate way to sign up for your next email.

Interested in learning more about adding text-to-subscribe to your marketing strategy? Download the whitepaper or contact us today to learn more.

Today I walked past our CEO, Neil Berman, and noticed he had his arm in a sling.  I exclaimed "What happened to you!?"  His response, "I fell off the ladder cleaning out my gutters."  I replied, "Well, next time you should hire that out."  The conversation got me to thinking, Delivra is that kind of company.

No, not a gutter cleaning company, but a company that provides the right email marketing resources when you need them.  Sure we have a software that enables you to create, send and track emails, but our Consulting Services ensure you don't fall off the ladder.  You spend money when you send emails, but are you sure you're getting the most bang for the buck?  If you're not talking to us about how to increase your overall email marketing engagement, you could be in for a big fall!

Here's a picture of some cute puppies I found on the internet.

The holidays are fast approaching.  I don't know about you, but this year has absolutely flown by for me. I'm now in full-on Christmas shopping mode.  If you're like many of my friends, you're now asking "Seriously? Already?" Yes, I'm totally serious. But the only reason I'm busy with Christmas shopping this early is because I have a bit of an abbreviated time-line.  The gifts need to be purchased, wrapped and ready for transport by Thanksgiving. 

You see, several years ago, Christmas gift-giving for my family had become... well... dull.  And a chore at that.  It was, as one friend in a similar situation put it "like trading fifty dollar bills". It came down to: 1) My parents and siblings all live comfortably, so finding things that someone needs or wants but doesn't have is difficult.  2) There are no grandchildren, so there's no real "toy shopping". 3) We don't spend enough time together to have a good idea of each others particular tastes, and I don't want to get something that someone already has only to turn around and return or exchange it. So, it became --more or less-- a meeting to exchange gift cards.

But then, something wonderful happened.  My parents suggested we find someone who would really appreciate the gifts. We decided to adopt a family through the Salvation Army.  It was very simple and has been incredibly rewarding. Mom worked with the local unit to find a family with children who needed help for one reason or another.  We were able to be selective, which gave an opportunity to find a family with the same number of people as us, so we each had someone to buy for.  The Salvation Army does all of the vetting and collection of information like clothing sizes, toy wish list, favorite colors... etc. 

And now our Christmas spending has meaning.  And we all look for ways to maximize what we're spending.  I just have to have them ready to drop off with my parents at Thanksgiving so that they can coordinate delivery to the family. The pile of boxes gets bigger every year, which is always exciting.  We're now up to sponsoring 3 families, so I can't wait to see what it looks like this year. What makes this even better is I now have several friends who have started something similar, so it is spreading.

If you're bored or not engaged with what you're doing, sometimes you have to shake it up and think outside of your current framework. The same can be said for your email program.  If you're not getting the results you want, experiment with something different.  Make a change.  Look at it from a different perspective. Then watch closely and see how it is working.  With experimentation and monitoring, you can turn a negative into a positive.  And hopefully it will be rewarding enough that others will follow your lead.

Thank you for letting me share my experiences.  If you have questions about how to adopt a family at Christmas, let me know. If you're looking to make some changes in your email program, let us know that as well.  We have a gift for that kind of thing.

Taulbee Jackson of Raidious, an interactive marketing company, and I hosted an informative webinar recently entitled: Top Email Content Trends of 2012.

We discussed the trend towards the mobile consumption of content and strategy for creating and measuring engagement.  

This 30-minute presentation may be worth your while. 

You can view it here. 

I attended the eMarketing Association Conference last week in Providence, RI and was excited to see such a strong turnout. Not only was it great to see some familiar faces, but I was able to catch the impressive keynote Clara Shih, Author of The Facebook Era and CEO and Founder of Hearsay Social. 

The subject matter was divided into three tracks: social marketing, search marketing and email marketing. The format was two days of intensive workships headed by panels of industry experts. 

No surprise that I was on the email panels. But, I was surprised the questions from attendees were mostly for basic issues that never seem to go away. How do I build an email list? How do I improve click-through rates on email? How often should I send marketing emails? 

The takeaway for me was that behavioral marketing is the single best way to lift results. That means tracking engagement activity and using those metrics to intelligently send relevant messaging. What's so exciting about this is it's doable with a little help from your email partner. 
 

What's the plan for your holiday email marketing this year? With a little strategy in advance (thirty minutes a day tops) for each of these tasks and you will have not only a clear plan, but a little extra time this Holiday season as well.

Singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” while you prepare is totally up to you.

Prep your base line statistics- Deciding your key performance indicators will help define success for your campaign. You may also want to evaluate your campaign data from last year to help set goals for improvement.

Define product/service line up- Once your goals are in place, decide what is going to be promoted this year to meet those goals and how they will be promoted to increase sales. What's the offer?

Make a flow chart- A flow chart can help you decide the order of content execution. Don't forget about adding triggered emails to your campaign this year. Decide where in your flow chart triggered emails can increase overall email engagement. 

Create a calendar of events- Remember, email probably is not the only way you are communicating. In order to successfully tie in social media, in-store and website promotions it's a good idea to create a calendar with key events so you can cross promote with email.

Next week, four ideas to prep your audience. If you will be increasing your email marketing communication, then it may be worth taking these extra steps to not upset your subscribers to the point of unsubscribing.