Email Insider Summit Email Append Panel – The day’s hottest debate!

I had the pleasure of joining one of the most anticipated panel discussions during the Friday session of last week’s Email Insider Summit. The topic was “E-Append: Good, Bad, or Other?” and I was joined by Jordan Cohen (VP Business Development, Pontiflex), Andrew Kordek (Chief Strategist, Trendline Interactive), and Suzanne Shaughnessy (Sr Account Executive, Fresh Address). Eric Kirby (CEO, Connection Engine) moderated our spirited panel and started the discussion with a single question – “Is email append ok to do?” Jordan started by noting that the process lacks clear permissioning, and violates M3AAWG, ISP, and ESP policies. Andrew contested that if done well, the process could be a profitable acquisition method. This is my perspective on e-Append.

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12 Days of Christmas: It’s the Mobile Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – - and also the busiest. With shopping, parties, and family events added to the calendar, people are rushing around even more than usual to fulfill the many demands December brings. But thanks to technology, we now have one must-have-to-survive-it-all item to keep people in touch with one another and work, while also managing schedules and spur of the moment internet searches. Yes – it’s the mobile phone.

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12 Days of Christmas: Holiday Fashion Tips for Your Email

Is your email properly dressed for the holidays?

That might seem like a funny question, but just as you would be sure to wear the right type of outfit to the company holiday party or to that trendy by-invitation-only event, your email also needs to be attractively styled to generate a positive response.

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KISS (The Email Marketing Version)

I was recently reminded of one of the first marketing lessons I learned over 12 years ago: KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). With technology so rapidly changing, it’s gotten easier and easier to overwhelm ourselves and our subscribers with communication: Newsletters! Triggered Alerts! Facebook Offers! Twitter Tips! So, I took this reminder as a point of inspiration to create an email marketing version of the long-time marketing rule.

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A New Practical Application for Email

How many times have you made a purchase and needed to return an item, but couldn’t find the receipt? Or, the receipt got accidentally washed in that new pair of pants and is totally unreadable? Or, your husband made the purchase and has no idea where the receipt could be – or if he actually ever got one?

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Multichannel Can Mean Multimedia

Day 2 of the Email Insider Summit kicked off with the charming and very knowledgeable Arthur Middleton Hughes. He brought spunk to the often less-engaging topic of Lifetime Value and reminded us of the heft that numbers can pull in internal battles for executive attention and budget. It also set a fitting upbeat tone for the subsequent sessions of the day, which covered multi-channel integration from a few different angles.

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New is Old? Or Old is New Again?

The temperature wasn’t the only thing that was high on the first day of the Email Insider Summit. Record attendance spurred highly interactive panel sessions on day one, and the buzz continued throughout the day in roundtable discussions and subsequent events. The topics of the first conference day were focused entirely on the new and emerging among the industry, including: real-time marketing, innovations in technology, and changes in webmail interfaces.

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Is Priority Inbox a Priority?

I was thrilled to have the opportunity with Media Post at their Email Insider Summit to moderate a panel session on the new inbox engagement trends that have become prevalent in the market. And to make the experience even better, I had three wonderful industry insiders joining me on the panel: Joel Book, Principal of eMarketing Education for Exact Target, Josh Glantz, VP of Online Marketing for Publishers Clearing House, and Marc Haseltine, Email and Alternative Marketing for National Geographic.

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Case Study: Focusing on Subscriber Preferences Can Increase Open Rates by 30%

When a company’s business model uses email exclusively for transactional purposes, it can be easy to dismiss response metrics, since the message is triggered based on specific subscriber behavior and is often assumed to be wanted mail. Well, the sender assumes the subscriber wants it. But is a triggered, transactional email really what the subscriber wants? See how our Professional Services team helped DG International improve open rates by 30%.

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Expectations Are A Funny Thing

Expectations are a funny thing. We talk a lot about paving the way to engagement with subscribers by setting clear expectations at the beginning of the relationship. And, generally, that’s solid, tried-and-true advice. But, recently I’ve began to wonder if that strategy is the best approach. Because setting a clear and detailed expectation upfront means that the marketer or experience must live up to it, or risk negative backlash. Hear me out.

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