Case Study: Web 2.0 Runs on Email

By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman

It's fashionable in many circles to toll the death knell for email. Part of the reason for that is the rise of Web 2.0 - blogging, social networking, and other methods of interaction that supposedly make email obsolete.
The funny thing is, Web 2.0 tends to rely pretty heavily on email. All those LinkedIn and Facebook emails are the things that drive huge amounts of activity on the sites.

Take Twitter as another example. While Twitter has successfully created a whole new communication method (complete with the verb "to Twitter" and the noun "tweet") a large number of their new members come through email. Specifically they come from peer-initiated email, aka forward to a friend email. Unfortunately for them, a lot of that email was being blocked or junked. This is a common problem for any company that has email forwarding on their site.

Fortunately for Twitter ...

Categories: Deliverability

Dad, can I borrow $20?

By Bonnie Malone Fry
Director, Strategic Services

When you were a teenager, how often did you ask good-ole Dad for money? You'd borrow $20, go out with friends to see a movie or go shopping, spend every last dime and look forward to doing it all again the next week.... Those were the days, right? Well, it seems that some marketers loved it so much that they are managing their email programs with the same mentality. While living in the present and begging for money to fund each and every need was generally the accepted behavior of a teenager, corporate executives don't enjoy playing the role of "good-ole Dad." Nowadays, it literally pays to do a bit of planning before you ask for more funding. Consider these alternate tactics to get incremental monies for your program ...

Categories: Response

Making Sense of Subject Line Research

By Stephanie Miller
Global Markets Catalyst

A very interesting study of subject lines was released last week by our friends at Alchemy Worx. The headlines focus mostly on length - is longer better than shorter? Is 40 characters better than 50 or 70? Let the debate rage, but I recommend ignoring it.

Focus instead on the key question this study helps answer: Whether subject lines of any length can predictably impact response rates.

Most of us think that subject lines only impact open rates - if the subject line is compelling, then the message breaks through. This is certainly true, but the Alchemy Worx report rightly also focused on broader engagement.

According to the study, open rates are optimized when the subject line is shorter - probably because shorter subject lines focus on a very specific offer. For example, "10% Off Until Thursday" is short, and compelling and easy for the subscriber to immediately understand the offer. If that message resonates, the subscriber opens. Certainly all the research we do here at Return Path supports this - clarity and simplicity in a subject line is always better than cleverness or complexity.

What I found more compelling is ...

Categories: Response

Is The Pendulum Swinging Back to Email?

By Matt Blumberg
CEO & Chairman

The TechCrunch news du jour is that Jason Calacanis has stopped blogging and is instead using email to communicate with his circle.

It's interesting to note that after months (years?) of "email is dead" stories specifically around blogging, RSS feeds, and social media in general, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to email. You should read ...

Categories: News