As I picked the brains of one Ninja after another, these great tips for email Ninjas took form. Ninjas are eager to share what their vast experience has taught them, and NewBees can learn from their insights too. Most of the tips focus on refining the processes that are essential to ensure optimum efficacy in each campaign. Building segmentation feedback, refining data collection and use, engaging subscribers with new lifecycle marketing strategies, thinking fluidly and across all media -- all are ways to improve results. Even Ninjas need to be reminded of proper compliance and testing. The comments I gathered cover the gamut of encouragements and admonishments.

[Use] your email list to build your social media following. Do that sort of thing. Track the clicks on your share links. Don’t necessarily use that just to build your social media following. When you do that you’re seeing who the people are that are using those networks in the first place. You now have data in your email system that you can use to create other specific campaigns centered [on] social media. You now have a segment just based on people that are clicking those social links who are going to be the people most interested.

~ Justin Premick of Aweber

Don’t be afraid to reach out to the NewBees and don’t jump down their throats when they want to say, “Buy the list.” It’s definitely not a good idea, but there are a lot of people that just don’t know. So be nice, be outgoing, and help as many people as we can.

~ Scott Cohen of Inbox Group Email Marketing

Keep people engaged and wanting to stay on your list. And one way to do that, and also try to create additional revenue, is maybe coming up with some sort of VIP or loyalty program. You could be introducing your loyalty program early on in a welcome series, and then have recurring messages every month with people’s points balances. Encourage them to spend even more so they can reach that elite status that they are looking for and get some sort of reward for that.

~ Kristen Gregory of Bronto Software

Start thinking mobile. I think a lot of emails are not made for mobile. A lot of people are getting their emails on mobile, so start thinking about mobile rendering, mobile design, and start asking people what type of mobile device they are using.

~ Kenny Van Beek of eTale

There are a lot of people that come into this industry on a yearly basis. We need to make sure that we continue to teach them the right way, to teach them what we’ve learned over the last ten years. And it’s that way that email is going to continue to change and evolve and not be a dead medium.

~ Ryan Phelan of Blue Hornet

The Ninjas that are out there need to become compliance officers or compliance persons. Think about: What could happen if I do X, Y, and Z wrong? Or how am I going to be affected by sending an email to somebody in a different country? The Internet itself is a global operation, so you need to become an expert -- not just on email -- but also on compliance. You need to help the new people as well. Not everybody knows everything. Take that time and help them out.

~ Dennis Dayman of Eloqua

Don’t succumb to the tendency to over-communicate just because you can. When we get the hang of Twitter and Facebook and all the other tools out there -- and email, we have a tendency to over-communicate. Just because we can use the tools doesn’t mean we should as much as we may want to.

~ Martin Lieberman of Constant Contact

Actually implement a lot of the things that we all read about in terms of integrating your data bases to your email service provider. And send relevant content, one-to-one content, preferably in an automated or triggered campaign. Start thinking about lifecycle messaging.

~ Marco Marini of ClickMail Marketing

Go fluid. Fixed-width emails just aren’t working anymore, because all different devices change resolution so quickly. You really can’t target a fixed-width layout anymore, so go fluid.

~ Anna Yeaman of Style Campaign

Track where people are coming from in social media like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and imbedding that into your opt-in forms with a custom feel. When they order, you’ll have that tag so you know exactly which videos, which social media sites are driving the most traffic, and -- more importantly -- which got the most qualified traffic which was leading to the most conversions.

~ “Big” Jason Henderson of Big Marketing Online

If you have organic lists that just grow from your website -- people come to your website because that’s what they want, don’t ever mix those with the ones you collect other ways. Those are not as quality of a lead. If you keep those separated and marketed to separately, you are not going to skew your numbers so bad. You’re going to have organic numbers and inorganic numbers, and I think that’s a better way of looking at things overall.

~ Chris Donald of Inbox Group Email Marketing

Please start testing more. I still see a lot of people that are very good at email marketing still not testing enough.

~ Tamara Gielen of Be Relevant

When I asked marketing Ninjas at the Sherpa Summit 2011 to share a tip for email NewBees, they had practical advice for those new to the industry. The consensus among these seasoned professionals is that it is essential to reach out and use the many human resources that are readily available to assist in your growth. Question and get to know some mentors, follow recommendations and guidelines, and ultimately “jump in with both feet”. These tools give invaluable access to email marketing experience.   ~Jeff Ginsberg                                                                               

I think that the most important thing is to get started. Get your first campaign up and running, get your welcome message together, start creating a couple of other campaigns, and just start tracking your results and you’ll learn. But you have to learn by jumping in with both feet.

~ Justin Premick of Aweber

Just reach out to the email marketing community and get to know people. Read as much as you can and don’t be afraid to question even the thought leaders in the industry, because we like to take care of our own.  So, if we get questioned it’s all about testing.      

~ Scott Cohen of Inbox Group Email Marketing

Make sure that your permission is explicit. I think that’s the foundation for any healthy email program, so wherever you are collecting addresses please be sure and make it very clear what they’re signing up for and what they can expect to receive from you.

~ Kristen Gregory of Bronto Software

I think there is just only one good list: your [own] in-house email list. Start building that, start engaging people instead of renting lists. You need quality not quantity.

~ Kenny Van Beek of eTale

Continue to learn. It’s a humble industry full of a lot of great people that will help you find the right answers. Whether you find [them] through articles online, strategic services, or people that you have at your email service provider, those resources can help you have a better program. Don’t be an outsider; be an insider and participate.

~ Ryan Phelan of Blue Hornet

Try everything. Jump in there immediately and send your first campaign. Also don’t be afraid to ask questions. Most of the people out there that have been doing this for as long as I have are more than willing to help you. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Try the new social media technologies. Don’t just do email; get out there and have some fun with it.

~ Dennis Dayman of Eloqua

Focus on people who really want to hear from you, and don’t get sucked into the idea that you need to have thousands and thousands of people on your list. Because many or most of those people might not really want to hear from you, and it won’t be as valuable as you might think.

~ Martin Lieberman of Constant Contact

Look for the right solution that’s going to enable you to grow. Sometimes it’s worth paying a couple of cents more to have a better solution and/or a better support staff.

~ Marco Marini of ClickMail Marketing

Don’t believe everything you hear and don’t believe everything that you read. You have to test everything. It has to be applied to your business. It’s not cookie cutter, it’s really not. So take the things that you learn, see how it fits into your business, and apply them there.

~ John Caldwell of Red Pill Email

With a mobile version, make it big enough so I can touch it with my finger. That’s my tip for NewBees: Make your mobile version links bigger, please.

~ Anna Yeaman of Style Campaign

You don’t want to send every person from everywhere to the same landing page. I would definitely try testing multiple landing pages specific to what they’re looking for in the first place.

~ “Big” Jason Henderson of Big Marketing Online

If NewBees do nothing else, reach out to the email marketing industry. Take some time, find some thought leaders that you know or that you follow and get to know them, and ask questions. It’s a great community, so everybody is happy to help.

~  Chris Donald of Inbox Group Email Marketing

What are the things that you can set up and automate and let them run without you having to spend the additional effort? I’m thinking about setting up a welcome campaign, any messages like surveys that you send out, triggered messages that you send out based on whatever your customer does on your website, whatever is relevant for your business.

~ Tamara Gielen of Be Relevant

By: Email Expert

In this article we will be profiling and interviewing Andrew Barrett who is currently employed at the ESP Real Magnet, known to many as “The knight errant” he can be found on Twitter at @hey4ndr3w

We were very pleased at the opportunity afforded to us by Andrew as he has a significant amount of experience in the email business and offers true insight into some of the thinking at a major ESP. Discussing the fact that many in the Email Service Providers marketplace have begun staking out high-value niche markets and that some other ESPs are finding it hard to compete he reveals one of the industries ‘dirty little secrets’. Before we find out more about what makes the industry tick,  and allow him to bare all, first we wanted to ask Andrew how it is like so many other leading figures in the anti-spam wars finds himself working at an ESP.

Knight Errant of the Spam Wars

Andrew explains “You’re referring to my work as Legislative Coordinator for SpamFree, as well as my brief tenure with MAPS, and my time as Executive Director of the SpamCon Foundation. Each of these roles or entities had a very strong educational component to them, which has always held great appeal for me. But among all of the various constituencies we worked with, the one that needed the education the most was the senders – the least likely group to (willingly) seek us out for help.

Working at an ESP is, remarkably enough, a fantastic place to effect change among people who want to send a lot of e-mail. It’s the exact opposite of a relationship that begins with a block listing. The relationship does not start from adversarial positions. Senders are seeking guidance – paying you for it – and tend to be far more receptive, and tend to ask more good questions. They’re actually listening.

The Anti-Spam Army

But one of the biggest reasons I’m here at all is the esprit de corps I feel for some of the folks I’ve worked with in the very earliest days. They’re all still around, and deserve all the credit for the fact that virtually every ESP worth its salt upholds as best common sender practices the same radical gospel we were preaching in 1996: Mickey Chandler and Al Iverson of Exact Target, Laura Atkins of Word to the Wise, J. D. Falk at Return Path, Kelly Molloy at SpamCop, Peter Popovich, David Romerstein and Jamie Tomasello of Cloudmark – all ex-MAPSters. And, of course, Neil Schwartzman of Return Path, who only narrowly escaped becoming a MAPSter (and therefore a fellow ex-MAPSter) in the first place.

What is the ESPs dirty secret?

The dirty secret of the ESP industry is that it’s essentially commoditized. The ESP provides the technical platform and correct provisioning, but it’s the client that does the rest – they are far more responsible for their own success than they

Mobile Marketing 101 Tuesday October 5th 1PM ET

Smart phones and tablet PCs are fundamentally changing how people connect to the web and to your brand. Have you gone mobile with your marketing? There’s no time to waste! Jared Reitzin, CEO and founder of MobileStorm and Len Shneyder of Unica join us to help you understand and get started with mobile and SMS marketing! As always, we’ll be taking your calls live!

Talking points:

According to CMO.com: 40% of iPhone/iTouch users access the internet more on their mobile than their desktop (Nielsen). In fact, U.S. mobile internet traffic across all handsets is now estimated between one third and one half that of wired internet traffic, making the mobile phone increasingly not the “third screen” but, increasingly, the first. A prime opportunity for SMS and mobile advertising!

• What do you need to know about getting into mobile marketing?
• How is mobile different from email marketing?
• Is mobile marketing basically email marketing on a smaller screen or is there much more to it?

Here’s your chance to get the answers from the experts!

Call in or Skype 1-347-637-3461

eMail Radio is not your average email marketing podcast!

Jared Reitzin Mr. Reitzin founded mobileStorm over a decade ago with a focus on creating a single platform that businesses could use to reach their audience in multiple ways. Under his guidance, mobileStorm has serviced thousands of customers and continues to receive massive growth year after year. Prior to officially forming mobileStorm in October of 1999, Mr. Reitzin was CEO of Katalyst Music Group LLC.

Len Shneyder Len Shneyder joined Unica with the acquisition of top rated deliverabiity services provider Pivotal Veracity. Before joining Pivotal Veracity Len was Deliverability Operations Manager for Yesmail. Len continues to address the concerns and needs of the world’s leading email service providers through his almost 10 years of email knowledge in the role of Director of Partner Relations & Industry Communications. Len is a regular contributor to the Deliverability.com blog in addition to growing critical ISP relationships for Unica’s clients and partners.

Source: Direct Marketing News

By: Shahnaz Mahmud

Lyris, a digital and e-mail marketing company, recently launched a partner program to give marketers an advantage on delivering complex campaigns. Blaine Mathieu, CMO at Lyris, talks to Direct Marketing News about the program and the evolving e-mail marketing space.

Direct Marketing News: What’s new for Lyris?

Blaine Mathieu: We are excited about our new partner program. It targets resellers, referral partners, integration partners and agencies with a comprehensive program including marketing support, competitive margins, training and personal support from the partner team. Most so-called partner programs are more about getting logos on websites. The Lyris partner program provides real benefits to real partners.

Also new at Lyris is our release of real time conversion and revenue metrics. Most [e-mail service providers] do a good job of reporting e-mail open and click-through data in near-real time. Marketers have used this data to test and optimize e-mail campaigns as part of an A/B test, for example. However, these metrics are really only proxies for the ultimate success of a campaign. By reporting actual revenue [for an e-commerce site] and conversion metrics [for a lead generation site], we can allow marketers to make timely decisions based on actual successful [initiatives].

Are your blog and email marketing friends?

Karen Talavera of Synchronicity Marketing joins us Tuesday @ 1pm ET to talk about how important your blog is to your email marketing campaigns and your business. A well-written, frequently updated blog can drive significant amounts of traffic to your website.

Talking points:

• Sometimes we get so caught up just keeping our email programs running that we get tunnel vision.  We forget that email is most powerful when it’s integrated with the other components of our marketing and content, and an ever-larger anchor for both marketing and content is the blog.

• Your blog and your email can work beautifully in tandem to both distribute content and invite readers to interact with you in other ways — ways that produce deeper engagement, greater loyalty, and more revenue.

• A well-written, frequently updated blog can drive significant amounts of traffic to your website (more and more these days, it may BE your website). With the impact of search indexing and social sharing, it’s likely that many potential readers are first landing on your blog pages – not your home page or product pages.  So, you want to leverage email to build relationships from there, as well as continually push people to new content as you have it posted.  How do you do this, and how much should you do to capture email addresses from blog visitors? We’ll discuss this plus how to orchestrate and ongoing email program to new and established subscribers.

Call in or Skype 1-347-637-3461

eMail Radio is not your average email marketing podcast!

Karen Talavera is the founder of Synchronicity Marketing which provides training, coaching and education in email and digital marketing.

Karen is both an online marketing practitioner and educator. Over a decade ago she launched and continues to teach the publicly-available Comprehensive Email Marketing Strategies two-day seminar for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Since then she’s also designed and taught digital and email marketing certification and training for MarketingProfs, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), DePaul University in Chicago and privately for clients ranging from solo-preneurs and small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies like American Express, AAA, ServiceMaster, Texas Instruments and Kaiser Permanente.

In addition, she’s co-owner of a joint venture with social media marketing expert Mande White called High Altitude Marketing Academy, designed to help small businesses, solo-preneurs, practice professionals and sole proprietors who are often overwhelmed about digital marketing channels get them up and running – and most importantly – leveraged together to attract new customers and grow revenue. High Altitude Marketing Academy delivers a variety of information and distance learning products, the first of which is the Email & Social Media Flight Accelerator self-study course introduced in February 2010 and available here.

Email marketing legends, Mark Brownlow of EmailMarketingReports.com and Bill McCloskey, founder of Email Data Source. Join Jeff and Jim Tuesday at 1 PM ET to talk about where email and social marketing is at now and where its going in the future!

We’ll take your calls live @ 347.637.3461!

Certainly there’s lots to talk about considering recent events such as Gmail’s Priority Inbox feature. We’ll take a look at where we are at and where email marketing is going!

Mark Brownlow is a writer, lecturer and web publisher who’s EmailMarketingReports.com is considered to be the “Macdaddy” of all email marketing blogs. Mark is a brilliant communicator and a thought leader in email marketing.

“Email Marketing Reports entered life in November 2001 because I was tired of decent folk sending spam because nobody helped them learn the basics of legitimate email marketing.”

Bill McCloskey is among the more influential thought leaders in the field of interactive marketing.

He was named one of online advertising’s 50 most influential people by Media Magazine in 2004 and one of the 100 people to know by B2B Magazine in 2003.

Since 2003, Bill McCloskey has authored a weekly column called The Email Insider that is read by more than 40,000 marketers worldwide. He frequently speaks at major trade conferences around the world and is jurist for some of the top email campaign and creative awards at these and other events.

Join us!

Call in live: 347.637.3461 with your questions or comments!

In the latest edition of our video interviews from the Canadian Marketing Association National Convention in Toronto, Jeff Ginsberg interviews Ben Chin from the Ontario Power Authority on social marketing and going green.

Ben Chin is Vice President, Communications for the Ontario Power Authority. Ben has been in the public eye for decades as a reporter, anchor and political candidate.

According to Ben, almost all of the promotion of the OPA power pledge initiative has been via social media. There’s no great mystery to marketing. The best marketing is going into a room full of people to deliver your message. Today in the social media space, it’s a room full of people and that is why it’s a prudent thing to do.

Going green isn’t a hard sell according to Chin because he feels people are already motivated to go green. The hard part is that each one of us have our own little areas that we are working on to try to encourage people to live more sustainably and fight climate change. There are a lot of silo walls which need to be broken down so that we can all work more effectively together.

While there are a lot of hoops to jump through and rules to follow in government, Ben thinks that a good thing because accountability is important for tax payer dollars.

From Ben’s point of view it’s important to lead by example and encourage other countries to follow our example where moving to more sustainable power sources are concerned.

Online and social media initiatives have been important to promoting the OPA agenda. The “Power Pledge” program is a big part of that. PowerPledge.ca encourages people to pledge one or more of six simple actions which can reduce the demand for power. Those who do pledge can earn rewards such as Air Miles reward points.

Takeaway: The best marketing is going into a room full of people to deliver your message. Today in the social media space, it’s a room full of people and that is why it’s a prudent thing to do.

In the latest installment from our CMA 2010 national convention videos, Jeff Ginsberg interviews Michael Seaton, chair of the CMA Digtial Marketing Council. Michael is currently head of Digital Marketing at CNIB where he leads online and digital strategy for the not-for-profit organization across Canada.

According to his bio at TheCMA.org, Seaton spent over a decade as Director, Digital Marketing at Scotiabank leading the bank’s digital strategy in Canada across multiple consumer touch-points and media platforms. He produced award-winning campaigns on behalf of Retail, Small Business and Wealth Management divisions driving the digital vision and implementation of websites, search, email, social media and community marketing programs. In addition to his extensive client-side background, Michael has held senior agency and consulting roles, most recently as Principal, Level C Digital.

Michael teaches the digital marketing course through the CMA. The course covers everything one needs to know about digital marketing, from social to email. The course is targeted to anyone who needs a broad knowledge of the best practices and specific techniques which are key to success.

Digital marketing has suffered from two misconceptions according to Seaton. One being that it’s just too complex and difficult to get into and the other, it’s just easy as pie to do. Neither is correct, with the truth lying somewhere in the middle.

For new marketers Seaton cautions that while your education is a solid background, it has little to do with the real marketing world. You get out of it what you put into it and the people who succeed in marketing are those who are passionate about it. The digital marketing industry is extremely dynamic. To keep up one must be learning and listening every day.

Michael makes an interesting observation about working with the CNIB, building websites for the visually impaired. He states that he’s learned that good accessibility also has a lot to do with good SEO.

Takeaway: Those who succeed in marketing are those who are passionate and keep learning new things every day.

DJ Waldow and Nikki Schiavone of Blue Sky Factory take over mic and camera from our intrepid reporter, Jeff Ginsberg @ MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Summit in Miami.

If DJ and Nikki ever wanted to change careers (and they don’t cuz they love email) they could probably do pretty well co-hosting a morning radio show. At one point Nikki decides DJ isn’t doing the interview right and a short microphone skirmish ensues. Nikki takes over the interviewing and puts DJ on the hot seat.

Also making a brief cameo appearance to say “Cut Jim!” is Greg Cangialosi from Blue Sky Factory.*

DJ and Nikki talk about what they do, what Blue Sky Factory does and what they enjoyed at the summit.

Should sales people be blogging for your brand? Nikki blogs for Blue Sky Factory and makes a great point that blogging about your brand helps you know it better as a sales person and helps you sell it.

Jeff Ginsberg joins the discussion and prompts Nikki and DJ to share some of their insight and advice with those new to email marketing.

From Nikki’s POV, email is the digital glue which holds everything together for a marketing plan, but you have integrate social marketing into your strategy as well.

It’s clear from DJ’s comments that sharing on social and blogs means sharing part of yourself. For some that comes easy and for others, well, they have to work at it. Obviously DJ has a special talent and is fearless when it comes to making those connections and building those relationships.

DJ points out the one big problem with being involved in social media (which I can certainly relate to), it’s hard to turn it off. You get so involved with the community online that you just can’t step out of the virtual without making a conscious effort to do so. In other words, no tweeting during dinner or at the kid’s piano recital!

View more great videos here!

Takeaway: Email is the digital glue which holds everything together for a marketing plan, but you have integrate social marketing into your strategy as well.

*On further review I released Greg was saying “cut” and not “hi” so I updated the post. Doh.

After so many years one would think the topic of email list buying (and selling) would be a settled Email Marketing Worst Practice; the worst of the worst practices.  For most it is, but there are still a few out there that tie themselves in knots trying to challenge it.

I’d said in Passing the True Beauty Email Test I’m at the point of metaphorically hoisting heads on stakes (editor’s note: It’s always possible he’s not being metaphorical.).  And when the opportunity presents itself….

The following is a fictional account of a recent discussion.  Since the “guest” believes that posting to public forums grants license of use to anyone viewing that information to be used anyway the collector of that information sees fit, by participating he gives me permission to use it by default.  Any similarities between the characters in this episode including appearance, sound, look, speech, quotes, or hairstyles are strictly coincidence.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

In Episode 2 of Interview with an Email Poseur our guest, Stevie, who is “yet to be convinced that the consumer should have a right not to be marketed to on a proactive basis” takes some questions from viewers….

The final episode of our interview with Stevie….  It’s scary that these people walk among us.  They are coming out of the woodwork lately it seems.  Check out this post from Laura Atkins over on Word to the Wise.

Pay attention; it isn’t just the blocking and blacklisting.  Spamming a purchased list can cause your registrar to put your domain in a coma, and/or your host, network, or ESP to suspend your account for being in violation of the terms and conditions of your agreement.

The conclusion of our interview with Stevie….


Thanks for tuning it!  I hope you’ve had as much fun as I did.  With any luck we won’t have to do this again, but I’m not going to hold my breath….

Takeaway: Every time you buy an email list a puppy dies!

Guest post by Ryan Deutsch, VP Emerging Channels, ThreadMarketing, a StrongMail Company

These are exciting times in interactive marketing and in particular; for email marketers.  From the social web to group buying (Groupon) to flash sales (Hautelook and Rue LA LA) online businesses are engaging the consumer in new and compelling ways.  In response to these and other trends, StrongMail has announced the acquisition of two New York-based interactive agencies, which we are combining with our existing strategic services arm to form a new email marketing and Social CRM agency called ThreadMarketing.   Why is this significant to our customers and the industry as a whole?  Here are a few key points:

It’s about conversations not messages. ..

Like it or not, the social web has changed the game.  There are now more ways for consumers to engage with a brand (and each other) than ever before.  While email sits at the center of the social web, it is not alone.  Consumers are using communities, social networks and micro blogs to start and carry on conversations with organizations, and brands need to be prepared to manage these conversations.  ThreadMarketing is not just an email agency, with deep expertise in email, social marketing, website development, community management, it will help break down silos between these channels and streamline the customer experience.

It’s about data, old and new…

StrongMail has a long history of integrating email marketing solutions with customer databases and systems.  The social web is making new data and customer insight available at a rapid pace and many of our customers have requested support in integrating this insight into the communication strategy and making it actionable.  ThreadMarketing will leverage StrongMail’s unique database integration capabilities and make social insights actionable, a key objective for interactive marketers today.

It’s about a broader communication framework…

While the traditional approach to email communication strategy has not changed, the opportunities to understand our subscribers and engage them have.  Today consumers have more than one “subscription” option.  Not only can they subscribe to email communications, but they can “Like” a brand, “Follow” a brand, “join” a community and so on and so on.  This means that a new framework is required to support relevant conversations with consumers.  ThreadMarketing has developed  such a framework: Listen, Learn, Engage and Influence.  This is not a social or email framework, it’s a framework required to drive meaningful conversations across channels.  While many companies “listen” and “learn” few leverage the data they capture to “engage” and “influence.”  ThreadMarketing will help bridge that gap.

Takeaway: Consumers are using communities, social networks and micro blogs to start and carry on conversations with organizations, and brands need to be prepared to manage these conversations.

Questions, feel free to post comments and we will respond as soon as possible.

About the Author:

Ryan Deutsch
Vice President of Emerging Media, ThreadMarketing, a StrongMail Company

An online marketing veteran and industry thought leader, Deutsch has more than 12 years of direct marketing experience across the catalog, retail and publishing industries. An addition to a bi-weekly MediaPost column, Deutsch is a regular contributor to multiple industry publications, including DM News, BtoB Magazine, and Chief Marketer.  Deutsch has been and remains a frequent speaker at industry events, including the DMA Annual, eTail, ad:tech and the MediaPost Email Insider Summit.

For a little more info on what StrongMail is all about, check out this video from Kristen Hersant, Director of Marketing for StrongMail.

In the latest installment of our video coverage from the Canadian Marketing Associations National Convention, Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg talks with Aldo Cundari about the state and the future of marketing.

Watch more videos from the Canadian Marketing Association National Convention here.

Aldo Cundari is Chairman and CEO of  the Cundari Group Ltd. and Chair, National Advertising Benevolent Society. In this interview with The eMail Guide’s Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg, Aldo first answers the question: How many marketers does it take to change a light bulb? Mr. Cundari has an interesting answer for that question. According to Mr. Cundari the answer depends on whether you are talking about agency side marketers or client side. He also responds to one of our favourite sayings: You don’t know what you don’t know.

What is the future of marketing? Right now, no one really knows because it’s changing so dramatically and so quickly. If we don’t step in quickly and make the right changes, some agencies will die. What are the changes to make? What kind of training do we need to give our people? How do we move them forward to understand that?

The changes we are seeing today are completely different from the past. It’s not the same game as ten or twenty years ago. According to Mr. Cundari, analytics are a good example of how much marketing has changed. Analytics today are real time and immediate. You have to be on it constantly and have staff who live it and breath it. Just getting staff trained on the new technology is a huge effort for agencies.

Dramatic changes have occurred and will continue at a dramatic pace. Those agencies which cannot adapt quickly will die.

Takeaway: Keep it simple. Have a business plan. Plan the work and work the plan.

See all the CMA videos here!

Terry O’Reilly is quite simply a legend in the marketing biz. He started out as a copywriter and later went on to co-found Pirate Radio & Television in 1990. Pirate is a leading creative audio production company with studios in Toronto and New York City.

He’s a much sought after speaker and has probably a few hundred awards to his name for writing and directing. When Terry is not creating advertising, he’s analyzing and speaking about it. He hosts the CBC Radio One/Sirius Satellite radio show, “The Age of Persuasion.”

Terry also has authored a best selling book titled “The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture”.

In this video interview, he speaks about the value of such events as the CMA National Convention. It’s evident that Terry cares deeply about the next generation of marketers and feels it’s very important for them to participate in organizations such as the Canadian Marketing Association.

O’Reilly compares the Canadian Marketing Association National Convention to the Detroit Auto Show is so far as attendees get to see all the current models of thinking and if you are really lucky, you get to check out some concept cars.

He enjoys gleaning insights from thought leaders who come at our world from a number of different directions. He loves to be told something he’s never thought of before and even something he has thought of before because he may get a new perspective on that issue.

Award show books are the how-to manuals of the marketing business according to Terry. Studying these books which feature fresh and imaginative approaches to marketing will help those new to the business learn the ropes.

Takeaway: Events such as the CMA National Convention are important for marketers because they give us the opportunity to share insight and test ideas.

In the first video of Howie Mandel speaking @ the CMA National Convention, we heard Howie describe how he’s managed to re-brand and market himself by going with the flow and keeping himself open to new possibilities.

In part 2, Howie discusses making decisions and how to know you are making the right ones. According to Howie, he probably spends too much time on decisions and given enough time you can talk yourself out of anything. That special talent we all have to suppress our instincts and talk ourselves out of anything is something one should be acutely aware of in order to have a good perspective.

Let’s face it, it was a big decision for him, newly engaged and with a steady job, to move to LA and take his run at being a comedian. In that case, he didn’t over think it and went with the flow – a good thing for comedy fans around the world.

Humans have strong instincts which we too often suppress or even ignore. That first gut instinct is usually right and going with that gut instinct has served him well. He labels himself as a dichotomy because he goes with his gut on the big decisions, but over thinks the small ones. It’s the small decisions such as whether to touch a glass on a table that are hard to resolve for him.

Howie often pauses to wonder at his success and how his ability to go with the fluidity of the way the world changes and not fear that flow/change has brought him such success.

What Howie is really talking about here is change management – our ability to adjust to a world where change is happening more often and more quickly than at any time in the past. It’s not the just the speed of change, but the number of changes of so many different factors which affect our lives.

Takeaway: Don’t ask yourself why the change is happening, but how you can take advantage of it.

Check out the other CMA videos here!

Having Howie Mandel speak at the CMA National Convention was a brilliant move on the part of the organizers. Not only did his frenetic personality totally light up the room, but his witty and insightful remarks on branding and marketing were pure gold. What Howie managed to do was take the subject matter and reduce it down into human everyday experiences that everyone in the audience could relate to. No pie charts, no Power Point slides, just great conversation and a lifetime of intuitive wisdom.

Howie Mandel speaking about your personal brand

From start to finish, Howie had the audience of marketing professionals in the palm of his hand. Oddly enough one got the impression that he wasn’t even trying. He was just being that same frantic funny man we’ve come to love. The real trait which shone through was his genuine sincerity and down to earth manor.

In the first of our videos from the Canadian Marketing Association Convention featuring Howie (there’s more to come from him), He speaks about his early career years and how throughout his life he’s tried to turn challenges into opportunities. He also talks about his natural ability to constantly rebrand himself and marketing his talents. This is a man who understands the most important brand is your own personal one.

Howie mentions how important it is to know what is going on around you and adjusting to that. According to him, people develop a system as they age which they follow all their lives — they lose their peripheral vision. On the other hand, if you continue to be aware of what’s going on around you and you go with that flow, your life will change. People should be open to new thinking and new ways of doing things.

Howie’s career is a great example of going with the flow and finding new opportunities. He’s changed his brand from carpet salesman to comedian to actor to game show host and producer.

Takeaway: Keep aware of what’s going on around you and be open to new possibilities which change presents.

The eMail Guide’s Jeff Ginsberg, talks email marketing with Chris Lovejoy, Senior email strategist, StrongMail at MarketingSherpa’s Email  Marketing Summit 2010.

StrongMail provides email marketing services, strategic services, deliverability services and they’ve just added a new social component to complete the package.

StrongMail offers both a hosted (cloud based) solution and a on premise hardware (appliance) based solution.

On premise solution is best suited for high volume email marketing clients sending 2-4 billion messages a month, who want full control. Being able to buy that perpetual license along with the software and  the equipment and then do the yearly licensing saves some money in the long run.

StrongMail’s cloud solution is basically the same thing but, rather than being behind your firewall, it’s a  rackspace approach behind a hosted firewall and there are a few APIs you would build out. However, it gives some flexibility for rapid expansion and still provides control with such things as the user interface.

According to Chris, their strategic team has years of experience through several different verticals and channels and that’s a key advantage StrongMail brings to the table. This strategic experience provides for a bird’s eye view, seeing what bubbles up for each individual client.  They can go down the rabbit holes to see what the client’s endgame, goals and their mission is — digging deeper to find out what those might be for them.

Chris points out that people just getting into email marketing should invest in an ESP which can also provide a strategic services component. It’s key to have someone who can partner with you on a day-to-day basis to bounce ideas off of, offering insight and perspective. If you can utilize that strategic component at your ESP, it really gets you to the next level.

Takeaway: Having an ESP who also provide strategic services, insight and advice can be critical to get your email marketing to a higher level.

Jeff Ginsberg interviews Timothy Seward, CEO, ROI Revolution at MarkertingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010 and gets some good advice about Google AdWords and first steps for those looking to get started with  leveraging online search to promote their business.

ROI Revolution focuses on helping email marketers (and marketers in general) build their lists using paid search strategies. ROI Revolution is a “done for you” service; they run your paid search campaigns for you.

The term “email marketing” is a very exspensive ad word at about 17 dollars a click or even higher. So, is it worth it for all but the big boys to go for?

Timothy suggests email marketers might want to go after alternative terms. On the other hand, if your customer lifetime value is sufficient and your conversion rate is high and if you have an effective way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, then it might be worth spending the money on the clicks.

There are alternative networks as well, such as: Yahoo, Bing, AOL and of course there is an enormous amount of traffic all over the web in such things and blogs and news sites. So if people are looking on line to grow their business, there’s a lot of traffic out there.

If someone is just starting out and looking to grow their business, the place to start is Google. Google feeds approximately 70 percent of all searches. Open an account with Google.com/adwords. There are lots of great books out there and online content about adwords and how to leverage it.

Timothy also recommends installing Google analytics and the Google Conversion Tracker on your site as well.

Takeaway: Google AdWords are not your only option for paid search on the web. Do some homework, read up and check out the alternatives.

Over the past several weeks on ScottWritesEverything.com, I’ve been conducting a series of what I call “Email Snob Interviews” with respected voices in the email marketing industry. In the first round of the series, I spoke with:

• John Caldwell, Independent Consultant and author of RedPillEmail.com
• Rory Carlyle of Carlyle Inc.
• Kelly Lorenz of Bronto Software
• Kent McGovern of 1ShoppingCart.com
• George DiGuido of Zeta Interactive
• Shannon Holato of Bronto Software
• Luke Glasner of Glasner Consulting
• Justin Premick of AWeber

Here are some highlights from the questions asked of all the participants:

Words of advice for those who want to get into the industry

“Immerse yourself in everything email and don’t believe everything you read… Oh yeah, and don’t buy lists and don’t use ‘blast’ as a verb.”
-  John Caldwell

“Take care of your client list and it will take care of you.”
- Kent McGovern

“Never quench your desire to learn. Technology is constantly changing and that goes double for email.”
- George DiGuido.

“Read… a lot. You need to keep up by observing industry trends and staying on top of the latest research. You’ll need to read a lot of blogs, whitepapers, trade publications, and the like.”
- Luke Glasner

“Stay open-minded and work hard to learn by testing.”
- Rory Carlyle

Thoughts on the effects of mobile technologies on email

“I think there’s opportunity there for bricks-and-mortar retailers to present coupons via email for subscribers on their mobile phones in-store and potentially for mobile email sign-up.”
- Kelly Lorenz

“People will be viewing email on their mobile devices more than ever before. Email will have to be presented in a mobile browser to be able to offer a similar experience to that of an email viewed on a desktop.”
- George DiGuido

“I think Mobile will work synergistically with email. I think it will do a lot for customer service type tings. I could also see a lot of transaction emails moving to mobile.”
- Luke Glasner

Advice for the email marketing industry at large

“Strategy is key. Regardless of how smart you think you are, be open to new ideas.”
- Shannon Holato

“You’re neither as good or as bad at email marketing as you think. Don’t get down on yourself, but don’t get complacent.”
- Justin Premick

“Before you hit the send button, take a step back and ask yourself: ‘Would I be happy getting this email in my inbox?’”
- Kent McGovern

“Everything is scalable. Baby steps can, and often do, have major impact. Don’t count out the small stuff!”
- Kelly Lorenz

“To ESPs: Don’t dumb-down a sophisticated product; smarten-up your users. Just like not everyone can be an athletic superstar or cover girl model, not everybody can do email.”
- John Caldwell

Favourite things about email marketing

“I love to see the results. A great email marketer is always optimizing different aspects of their email functionality. It’s awesome to put all that work in and watch the success of that work.”
- Rory Carlyle

“The people and the technology. Email technology, the platforms, the functionality, and the ability to provide marketers with the ability to do great things with their email campaigns is really fun.”
- George DiGuido

“I really like the nuts and bolts of email operations across the board. I like to design and develop complex automated programs, roll them out, geek on the numbers, and then start tweaking and tuning. But my absolute favorite thing about email marketing is having the opportunity to share my experience and what I’ve learned in my time in the space.”
- John Caldwell

The “elevator pitch” for email marketing

“The ROI of email marketing speaks for itself. If companies aren’t utilizing this kind of revenue-generating channel, they’re living in the dark ages.”
- Shannon Holato

“In 2009, the ROI of email was $43.52 per dollar spent, according to the DMA. It’s worth the effort.”
- Kent McGovern

“Low cost. High ROI. Start-to-finish measurement for future optimization.”
- Rory Carlyle

“Email is highly scalable, so it fits any market’s size. It is the most targetable form of marketing and nothing seems to be able to beat it as a retention vehicle.”
- Luke Glasner

“With the proper resources, you can build a program that is one of, if not your most, profitable revenue channels.”
- Kelly Lorenz

Got any questions or comments you’d like to add?

Takeaway: Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. (Martin Fischer)

Check out each of the entire interviews on ScottWritesEverything.com:

Interview with John Caldwell
Interview with Rory Carlyle
Interview with Kelly Lorenz
Interview with Kent McGovern
Interview with George DiGuido
Interview with Shannon Holato
Interview with Luke Glasner
Interview with Justin Premick

Jeff Ginsberg interviews John Janetos, VP of Sales & Business Development at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

iPost is an email service provider based in California. iPost has been serving B2C clients in retail, hospitality, higher education and the B2B tech sector since 1996. They offer a full suite of services spanning creative to execution, providing clients the flexibility to take advantage of these services or function more independently.

iPost technology is fully integrated with API that allow customers to easily integrate their system into an existing IT infrastructure (for example CRM integration) and yet, at the same time it’s designed to run in the cloud as a software service.

For people new to email marketing, John makes the point that it’s key to understand your customer base, segment it correctly and send the right message at the right time.

Chief eMail Officer, Jeff Ginsberg talks new media with Saul Colt of  Thoora.com!

Thoora is a next gen news service. Thoora reads the entire blogshphere, all of the blog comments, plus traditional news sources and in real time clusters the stories together and ranks them based on reaction on the web. As opposed to say DIGG, Thoora uses an algorithm and not user votes to rank the articles. Thoora can be used by businesses to build vertical channels focusing coverage on specific topics of interest. While the Thoora technology is perfected, they are still building out the different possible options for people and businesses of varying needs and means to make use of it.

Saul will tell you he loves email marketing and really appreciates it’s value.

Takeaway: Thoora’s power is in the fact that it uses an algorithm to rank it’s content. This prevents people from “gaming” the system as they might do with a user ranked service such as digg.

For more info on Thoora, check out: www.thoora.com

Tiwtter: @thooranews

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, talks email marketing with Nino Gentry from Citrix at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

It’s great to have the opportunity to meet up with our community members at these kind of events and get their feedback and insight. Nino (@nino304) is one of our favourite tweeple and we tweet with him just about every day. He works with Citrix applications such as GoToMeeting.

Nino’s big takeaway from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010 is that retention is the new acquisition. For more on that, check out our interview with Joseph Jaffe!

Great seeing you Nino!

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, talks email marketing with JD Peterson, Director of Products, Lyris, at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

JD points out that the Lyris HQ value proposition is all about helping online marketers succeed. No matter what they need, be it through tools or services, the ultimate goal is to bring success to their clients. Clients range from very small businesses to larger enterprises but, their focus is primarily on mid-market.

Lyris offers an integrated platform, wrapping analytics, social and mobile marketing tools around their core email marketing offering.

JD also comments that his company takes a very hands on approach with clients and enjoys exposing them to new and different ways to get better ROI out of the tools and ultimately with the program. Lyris likes to get that message to the client via direct contact and via the user interface. They’re focusing on online community growth as well via Twitter and Facebook, so, users can interact and share resources and ideas.

According to JD, email marketing remains one of the most cost effective, high ROI means to stay in contact with your customers. It’s fairly easy to do even if you don’t have a list and one thing Lyris can do is help you build that list.

Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer of The eMail Guide, interviews Joseph Jaffe, Author of ‘Flip The Funnel’ and President and ‘Chief Interruptor’ of crayon at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 in Miami.

In the interview, Joseph speaks out about acquisition and retention and makes the point that the only reason we are in business is because of our customers and treating them better with a more proactive approach to customer support and the customer experience, will turn them into brand evangelists and brand ambassadors. He’s passionate about how we can grow business from the inside and demonstrate that retention as a strategic driver can become the new acquisition.

Takeaway: What’s more cost effective? Traditional advertising to acquire new customers or investing more in proactive customer support and a better customer experience which will turn customers into evangelists and ambassadors for your brand, marketing it to other potential new clients?

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this as well! Please post your comments.