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

There’s a lot that you can focus on and it’s hard to know where to start, and I think the biggest challenge for email marketers in 2011 is prioritizing.

~ Justin Premick of Aweber

It’s finding that conversation [with] your subscribers that’s going to make sense and get them to convert. Whatever your conversion metric may be -- whether it’s sales or just simple engagement, relevance is still going to be the biggest challenge.

~ Scott Cohen of Inbox Group Email Marketing

I think with all the changes that we’re seeing and the different ISPs it’s going to get more and more important to get more relevant, to get more targeted, segmented, absolutely starting to do some of that lifecycle marketing, automated triggers, real-time marketing, that’s going to make a big impact on people’s performance this year.

~ Kristen Gregory of Bronto Software

I think it’s still content, segmentation content. We’re still blasting too much. We have to think about real relevancy in content and segmentation and give people the opportunity to get something in their inbox [that] they really like so they respond to it and subscribe [to] your list.

~ Kenny Van Beek of eTale

How can we adapt email to be a conversation? 2011 is going to be: How do we integrate social media into our campaigns? How do we start that conversation and continue that conversation through an engagement practice, through the strategies that we implement throughout our own programs?

~ Ryan Phelan of Blue Hornet

I think one of the things that marketers should be aware of for 2011 are the new changing regulations that are going to affect marketers. A lot of the countries are now pushing opt-in legislation or privacy legislation that will require you to get explicit opt-in permission to be able to email or to even in some cases track individuals.

~ Dennis Dayman of Eloqua

The biggest challenge other than creating content is now going to be to create content that your customers and readers are going to want to share on all their social networks.

~ Martin Lieberman of Constant Contact

You still see a lot of companies worried about the size of their email lists and how to get people to opt-in and worry about opt-out, when really the shift should be more towards relevant content.

~ Marco Marini of ClickMail Marketing

The biggest challenge for email marketers is taking all the things that you learn at events like Marketing Sherpa and bringing it back to your business or your organization and applying it.

~ John Caldwell of Red Pill Email

[The biggest challenge will be] designing emails for mobile devices. That’s been a huge priority for us in the last year. And our clients [have] been saying, “Come up with ways that we can redesign our emails so that they render on the iPhone.”

~ Anna Yeaman of Style Campaign

The biggest challenge, I would say, is complacency. You’re going to have to start testing more and not being satisfied with what you are currently getting, testing and tracking and seeing what you can do to improve things and increase your revenue.

~ “Big” Jason Henderson of Big Marketing Online

It’s still going to be engagement. It’s still going to be trying to get your list to respond and do what you want it to do. I think email marketers are also going to have to look at what Amazon threw out there in the past couple of days.

~ Chris Donald of Inbox Group Email Marketing

Where probably in the past you had about five seconds for somebody to check out your email, it’s probably less because they’re being rushed, they want to do more, they want to do other stuff, and email is just one of the things they do online these days.

~ Tamara Gielen of Be Relevant

Live stream from MPEIS

If you could talk to a room full of the top marketers in North America, what would you say to them? We go to people on the street and ask them what advice they want to give.

We took our cameras to the street to find out how and where people socialize online. Do they interact with brands on Facebook? How do they feel about ads on social networks? The answers may surprise you.

How much do you use SMS/text? How do you talk to your friends and family? Some people you SMS and some people you phone. The phone is a more formal communication method. How do you feel about SMS advertising?

We stepped out on the street with our cameras to ask people if they had any brands they love or just like. Which brands do the best job of marketing via email to you? We get some interesting responses and ask why they love who they love.

Do people prefer to be the instigators of communication with brands? How do they feel if a brand emails them with triggered suggestions or coupons based on their behavior? The reactions of those we spoke to were not as predictable as you might think.

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!

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.

In the latest video from the recent CMA National Convention in Toronto, Andy Nulman of TXT-TV made his pitch about what the channel is and what marketers can do with it.

TXT-TV is an alpha-numeric cable channel where the programming centres on SMS comments/answers from viewers via their smart phones. An alpha-numeric channel simply means there is no actual motion video broadcast. Some animated images, but you won’t see much more than still images and scrolling text.

I’ve spent time watching TXT-TV and for a sometime professional lurker such as I, it was strangely hypnotic. I can see why this could be a tasty distraction and it might even keep the babysitter out of your fridge.

TXT-TV will live or die fundamentally on its ability to build a core community.  Most online communities have more lurkers than they do participants and that’s not really a problem if you still get the eyeballs on the sponsor messages. But you do need to have that core community actively participating in order to keep others lurking.

TXT-TV wants to accomplish this with a variety of shows where you can participate in a trivia game, choose the cutest pet between two uploaded photos, test your word power or even test the future of your relationship. All the while the SMS chatter continues in the background or perhaps it’s the foreground.

They also have tied the channel in with their website by smartly giving people the opportunity to create a persona via the site with unique user names and avatars.

TXT-TV broadcasts 15 minute segments – presumably to best cater to the short attention span of texters. The messaging is pretty typical stuff, much like one would expect to find in any online chat room. When I checked it out they also seemed to have full time moderators keeping an eye on things and acting as casual hosts.

Takeaway: I can see one problem with getting your 15 minutes of fame on TXT-TV, you might end up being “type cast”.

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.

Max Valliquette is a social media expert who helps companies understand how to communicate via this new medium. Max spoke at the recent Canadian Marketing Association Next: 2010 National Convention in Toronto recently. You can watch more great videos from the CMA National Convention here.

According to Max, social media sites are no longer destinations, but channels of access. Social is a media we do not control even if we create them. Social media to the young is their language. It’s not news that kids learn computers and technology faster and easier than adults in general. It’s almost as if this is a native language they’ve been waiting for all their lives.

Social media is a conversation which never ends.

Social media has shattered the illusion of control for brands and marketers – we no longer have total control over a brand. Young people have always pushed against authority and boundaries and thinking we can maintain control in today’s world is a misconception and a dangerous one at that. Control has shifted from creators to consumers.

Kids grow up thinking that they own their brands and they can draw Mickey and Donald, put it on their fridge and do with it as they will. Now those same kids are making mashups of TV shows, sports and movies.

We don’t even control the channels where people discuss our brands. You can’t even really control what people find when they search for your brand.

You can’t simply transplant your old marketing plan onto the web. You have to involve young consumers in the marketing process and seek their feedback or you will alienate them and they’ll hijack your branding.

Takeaway: You can try and fight this. You can hire lawyers to send cease and desist letters every time you see something negative posted on the web about your brand, but your time would be better spent engaging young consumers and involving them.

In the third and final installment of Howie Mandel’s talk at the CMA National Convention, Next: 2010, Mandel maintains a consistent message. That message is that we all market ourselves and we all need to be aware of the flow and trust our instincts.

Check out part 1
Check out part 2

With a frantic energy (at times threatening to launch himself out of his chair), Howie pretty much had the whole room hostage. In fact, earlier in the afternoon, one person who tried to squeeze their way out was caught red-handed by the comedian and called out. This had the audience not only laughing hysterically, but probably breathing a sigh of relief that it was someone else he nailed.

Howie doesn’t think you can’t really decide what’s next. What you can do is be aware of the flow and then go with it to take advantage of opportunities. That’s pretty much been how he runs his life – from Bobby’s World to Deal or No Deal, each one was an opportunity he chose not to let slip by.

At one point in this video, Mandel shares a story about the late artist, Denny Dent, who was legendary for his ability to paint beautiful large portraits with three brushes in just a few minutes. This was a skill which Dent never knew he had until the death of John Lennon triggered a creative genius moment and lead his life in a new direction. According to Dent, we’re all artists inside and being open to new ways of doing things and new paths is critical to bring that out.

When you go with that gut feeling, that instinct, even if things don’t work out, you still learn from that experience and squeezing as much experiences into your life as you can is really what living is all about.

Howie got a big round of applause when he stated marketing is what we should all be doing in life. If somebody goes out on Friday night, they are marketing themselves.

Takeaway: We’re all marketers of our own brand -- ourselves.

Check out the other videos from Next: 2010!

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.

Rahaf Harfoush is an expert on technology’s impact on business, education, and government. In 2008, she was a part of the Obama campaign’s social media team. Recently, Harfoush is the Associate Director of the Global Cooperation Initiative at the World Economic Forum.

Rahaf is a new media specialist and has worked with numerous corporations and projects. She worked on the booked Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and authored her own book about working on the Obama campaign titled, Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand.

Rahaf’s presentation at the recent CMA National Convention, focused on how the Obama campaign leveraged social and email marketing to gain support for their candidate. Specifically, she speaks about the importance of spurring real world action/activity via the virtual world. As she points out, making the connection with people online is great but, that connection still has to translate into action (conversion) to be effective. Getting people together online supporting Obama is great but, getting them out to the polls is the important goal.

Ms. Harfoush relates how personalized email signed off by Obama really made an impression on people, some even perceiving them as coming directly from the candidate and replying to thank him for taking time from a busy schedule to update them. It was an effective way to build relationships with voters.

She also speaks about what the campaign email team called “hyper-segmentation”. The Obama campaign sent out 1 billion emails over the course of the campaign but, they were tightly targeted depending on the person’s location and the issues they had indicated were important to them.  People were much more likely to become involved offline if they were being motivated by issues they felt strongly about. They also segmented based on donation history to ensure that people who had donated one day would not get a solicitation for funds the next.

Takeaway: Hyper-segmenting based on location and interests can convert online support into real world actions.

Ken Wong is a faculty member and the Commerce ’77 Teaching Fellow in Marketing at Queen’s School of Business. He was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends in 2006 in the mentor category. Ken is a passionate speaker and doesn’t mince words. Most of us could only wish for a teacher such as him in our younger days.

According to his bio at The Marketing Hall of Legends, it’s obvious he has a rather impressive teaching resume with stints at Carleton University, Radcliffe College, Cornell and Harvard’s Continuing Education Program, and in executive programs at York University, University of Toronto, Dalhousie University and the University of Alberta. He is the coauthor of Basic Marketing, one of the leading introductory textbooks in Canada.

Ken held the delegates at the CMA national convention in thrall as spoke about the fascination he has for why people don’t do what they should do. Specifically, he was referring to marketing and the surprising statistic that in the economic down turn, as many as 40% of companies plan to cut back or kill marketing budgets.

Ken spent 18 months touring North America talking with decision makers about marketing and how they are dealing with the recession. Ken’s message to these folks was basic, there’s a simple way to deal with the recession, cut back where you can but, keep your pedal to the medal when it comes to delivering value to your customers – nothing is more important.

Ken wonders why some people don’t understand that the number one purpose of an organization is to create a customer. As Ken points out (and as we say over and over) it’s about relationships.

I had the chance to briefly speak with Ken after his presentation and you’d be hard pressed to meet a nicer and more genuine guy. Ken likely had a pretty tight schedule and yet he took the time to speak with me about email and social marketing and some other points of interest.

Takeaway: In hard times, cut back where you can but, keep your pedal to the metal when it comes to delivering value to your customers — nothing is more important.

Social media and social marketing are the first topics in our videos from the recent Canadian Marketing Association National Convention, featuring social media author, Tara Hunt. We’ll be posting more videos from the CMA 2010: Next daily! We’ve got a lot to share from this great convention!

Tara Hunt is well known in the social media and social marketing circles. She’s the author of:  The Power of Social Networking (formerly titled: The Wuffie Factor) and a sought after speaker on social media and social marketing. At the recent Canadian Marketing Association Next: 2010 national convention, she spoke passionately about how many companies seem to perceive social media and social marketing as some kind of band aid solution to be used as a short term fix for other customer service shortcomings.

It’s a good point. I would imagine there’s more than a few VPs out there who think that social media tools such as twitter give them a perfect way to treat the symptoms of a problem (with the high visibility of social media and social marketing), rather than having to actually improve their service.

See someone say something negative about you on Twitter or other social media? Have a staffer using social media monitoring tools reply quickly to the person offering help. Yep, that’s going to play well to some but, it doesn’t really fix the problem that caused the negative tweet in the first place does it?

Tara tells a story of how she got a call from a Rogers Communications phone bot telling her she should call a specific number regarding an important matter (if it’s important shouldn’t  Rogers have a live person call?) so, Tara called the number and got, yes you guessed it, another bot! This bot told her the number had changed and gave her a new number to call which led Tara to yet another phone bot! It gets better kids! This time the bot asked her to press 8 for English and after she did so, proceeded with instructions in French – you just can’t make up this kind of stuff.

Watch the video and you’ll see how Tara reacted, how Rogers attempted to react via social media and how that attempt failed.

Takeaway: Social media is not a band aid solution for other customer service shortcomings.

Our live coverage of Marketingsherpa’s Email Summit 2010 in Miami wasn’t all perfect. It was close but, not perfect! In recognition of this being April Fools Day, we thought you’d get a chuckle out of this blooper reel featuring The eMail Guide’s Jeff Ginsberg and a cast of thousands from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010!

Featuring such email marketing celebreties as:

The Sherpa Girls Aimee, Sharron, Hope!

Joseph Jaffe from Crayon!

Bob Lorum, President of MarketingSherpa!

Big Jason Henderson from BigMarketingOnline.com!

Brandon Wilkins from Bronto Software!

We’ve still got more great video interviews to post from MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit 2010, so keep watching for those! Check out the rest of our other great email marketing videos here!

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.

Keith walks you through the subject painlessly and with plently of personality!
In fact, you’ll love his elevator pitch video here!

When email marketing you should probably consider email authentication. There are 4 basic authentication methods for email: SPF, Sender ID, DKIM and Domain Keys. Which one is right for you? Email authentication helps prevent spoofing, and is more and more prevalent in the email space. If you are an email marketer then get used to the lingo.

More great video interviews and email marketing advice!