Even the most vigilant and legitimate of email marketers can have their emails mistakenly filtered as unwanted or junk mail at the ISP or individual level (an estimated 15% of legitimate email lands in the junk pile according to recent studies). Habeas aims to provide marketers with a way to tag their email as legitimate, using the "Sender Warranted Email" (SWE) system. Think of it as a Good Housekeeping seal for email messaging. Marketers purchase a license from Habeas and in return they are able to use the patent-pending Habeas Warrant Mark in the header of their emails. This Warrant Mark certifies that the email should be considered "friendly fire," and theoretically it should be permitted to slip through filters and blocks at the ISP and individual level. The company is actively defending the concept through copyright and trademark law, and is vigorously partnering with ISPs and filtering systems. Contact the company for pricing.
If you are looking for thought leadership on the subject of email marketing, the IMN Resource Library is a good place to start. With its wizard-driven template interface, this email, blog and RSS feed service provider is a popular choice for marketers who want the ease of do-it-yourself campaign design. IMN has learned from its broad and deep array of clients. You will find dozens of articles and white papers within the Resource Library on everything from blogs and list management to content, reporting and design. One of the interesting things that this company is doing is developing very specific publishing tools and templates for very vertical niches such as health clubs, automobile dealerships, channel partners and alumni organizations. For example, built right into the alumni organization email publishing system are the ability to deliver targeted content for different sets of graduates (by geography, graduate school or interests), a refer-a-classmate functionality that facilitates the desire to find "lost" classmates and content tracking and survey tools.
M:Metrics measures consumer adoption of mobile content and applications, including advertising. If you're wondering whether the days of wireless advertising are upon us, consider this: According to M:Metrics, a sizable percentage of mobile subscribers are responding to short codes placed in advertisements or in other media, with Spain topping the list at 29.1%, followed by the UK at 18.5%, France at 10.1% and the United States at 7%. It's not surprising that our European friends lead in terms of trends and statistics; after all, mobile devices and their usage are much embedded and sophisticated. Visit the site for more statistics, including the percentage of US cellular users who are willing to accept wireless advertising messages. M:Metrics makes some of its information available on a complimentary basis; in-depth, granular reporting on the industry is available for a fee.
This report reveals the latest email marketing trends and metrics by industry as compiled from 200 million emails sent by 3500 MailerMailer clients. Across the board, open rates hover at close to 20% but are declining slightly, which may be due to an increased number of recipients preferring non-trackable text email formats. However, HTML-formatted emails have higher clickthrough rates. Emails with subject lines of less than 35 characters are much more likely to get opened, as are emails with some degree of personalization in the message itself or in the content of the message. The report also includes best-practice tips and strategies as well as open and clickthrough rates by industry.
Who is going mobile with advertising campaigns? At this site you will find all kinds of information about mobile advertising and who's doing what to whom. We like the ability to read vendor/platform agnostic information at this site; we're more interested in the adoption of the technology than specific agency hubris. Visit the site to learn how companies like McDonald's and Embassy Suites are delivering direct marketing and even e-commerce campaigns over the "third screen". Wireless advertising is a gold mine for advertisers, who covet the trackable, targetable, youthful audience - one that is addicted to their always-on technology. The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is devoted to the growth of mobile marketing, with 400 members representing over twenty countries, including agencies, advertisers, hand held device manufacturers, carriers and operators and retailers.
NEPA (Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association) is the international trade association dedicated to advancing the interests of for-profit subscription newsletter publishers and specialized-information services. There are some no-cost resources available at the website, including a calendar of local chapter meetings, which usually feature a presentation by an industry expert. The fee to join as a publisher starts at $295(US) and is based on revenues. Membership includes a plethora of reports, buyer's guides, surveys and studies, 12 hours of no-cost legal counseling and access to a number of Web-based specialty listservs dedicated to marketing, editorial, sales, small publishers, fulfillment, conferences and large publishers. You automatically get membership in your local chapter as well.
What could be better for an email marketer than a search engine devoted solely to email marketing?
Using the Google Custom Search Engine technology, the folks behind this site hand-picked those
sources that they considered to be quality sites on the subject. They rolled them into a custom
search engine and thus you have a one-stop search tool for everything related to email marketing,
from media sites to blogs, industry associations, email marketing tools and service providers
and more. A search for "Web Digest For Marketers" returned 143 references to WDFM. Check
for your company or for those resources that you need to keep on top of the subject. This search
engine is the brainchild of Email Marketing Reports.
It's difficult to stay on top of the exploding field of email marketing trends, players and news. One resource that valiantly attempts to tackle this moving target is Opt-in News. At this site you will find tons of resources, including daily news updates and a valuable resource directory that provides links to sources for newsfeeds, syndication, writers, email marketing consultants, ad exchanges, list brokers, marketing organizations, co-registration firms, messaging solutions and more. The daily emails are quick and excellent reads, and the portal also offers several in-depth reports on mail marketing firms, list appends and filtering trends (for a fee).
M&M's was into conversation marketing long before the term was coined. Way back when, they offered the ability to create your own M&M's by choosing the colors that you wanted and by personalizing each candy with your name or other words. Roll forward a few years, and today you will find even more interactivity at the site. Visitors can create their very own M&M's character with their choice of color and body parts. They can place that character in various situations such as within games or on postcards where the character is hanging out on the beach or on the ski slope. They also take e-commerce way beyond candy by offering the ability to personalize and then purchase a tote bag, hat, coffee mug and so on. Visit this site for a great example of brand extension where you would think there wouldn't be much to extend.
Email service provider Responsys provides an information-rich resource center that is a must-visit
for any email marketer. Topics (including articles which are penned by Responsys executives) include
lifecycle marketing, segmentation and analytics, email program optimization, creative best practices
and B2B email marketing. At the time of writing, featured articles and Webinars were
"10 Quick Email Marketing Wins", "Secrets of Self-Running Email Campaigns",
and "Email Deliverability and Campaign Performance: Insights on
Reputation Programs and Authentication".