Comments on: Email’s Alive, But You’re Doing It Wrong

By: Gary Jesch

Gary Jesch — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:21:25 +0000

Good article, Lisa. Your observations hit home with me. I don’t email nearly enough to my list, and it is probably costing me some opportunities. Good email lists in my circles (B2B) are high-maintenance, though, with all the transitions in the workplace. Getting them read is also challenging – with my clients facing tremendous pressure on them to accomplish the seemingly impossible. And getting in front of the new people industry is so hit and miss. All that said, email is still worthwhile and will continue to be.

By: DJ Waldow

DJ Waldow — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:43:28 +0000

Lisa – First of all, I’m still bummed that we didn’t meet face to face in Vegas during Blogworld. Shame on us! Oh well. Next time, right?

Thanks so much for taking the time to blog about email marketing. Clearly, I’m biased, but email is very much alive. The numbers don’t lie. It still has the highest proven ROI (according to the DMA) than any other online channel … if you do it right. Not bad, huh? But again – as you say too – you have to do it right. I think the rub is that “doing email marketing right” is different for everyone. I yell at Chris Brogan all the time for breaking email marketing “best practices” (quotes intentional). BUT, it works for Brogan.

I said this at the New Marketing Experience event last month in Chicago: “In order to be good at email marketing, you have to be slightly better than SUCK.” Think about it though, right? Just better than suck. That’s because so much email and email marketing out there is crap.

Okay. Mini-rant over.

On a related note, I’d love to guest blog for you about email marketing … anytime.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
http://www.blueskyfactory.com
@djwaldow

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:40:28 +0000

Great points! On the other end of things, I’ve recently been unsubscribing from everything (sorry, Dictionary.com Word of the Day! Goodbye, Orbitz!) in my personal inbox in an effort to declutter. The only senders that get to stay are the ones that don’t send too many messages, offer consistently interesting or relevant content, and/or I have a personal connection to. This purging process has definitely been shedding some light on the newsletters I write!

By: Facundo Zocola

Facundo Zocola — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:58:03 +0000

First, Lisa, I love you.

Then, i haven’t read the comments and i’m directly commenting myself before doing it, in order not to lose my first impression of the article, which I consider the most important tool for determining its value.

I live in Argentina and i’m a travel agent. Here, although this new “social media world” does exists for business, it does it in a much more naive and distant perspective than the one you are accostumed to.

In my company, we started using e-mail marketing a few years ago, but with very few and primitive tools.
Back in the last May, I encouraged and convinced the CEOs to go for a new e-mail marketing and social media plan, which was intended to cover the communication holes we were stepping into at the moment.

And it worked. And e-mail marketing works.
But, as Lisa wisely expressed, it have to be taken with extreme care.
E-mail marketing can be a double-edged weapon.
But it can be a gold mine, also.

Thanks, Lisa.

By: kathryn

kathryn — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:14:53 +0000

I hear this. Even some big-names make the mistake of inundating customers with email. Take Sephora, for instance….(whom I adore, at least when I’m in the store). Yes, I’m on their mailing list. But I receive emails on average of 4 times/week and they lag horribly when they load. It’s annoying. (Did I mention that I adore them?)
Nowadays, I usually don’t bother reading them…but I love the products enough that it’s the only thing that keeps me from unsubscribing.

For what it’s worth.

By: Rolv

Rolv — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:26:44 +0000

Companies seem to ignore the single largest online branding/advertising venue available: their own regular external emails. Why not use these emails to market the senders company?

You have a website.
You send emails.

Why not multiply your sales-staff by “wrapping” the regular email in an interactive letterhead?

No other marketing or advertising medium is as targeted as an email between people that know each other (as opposed to mass emails). These emails are always read and typically kept.

WrapMail offers a solution that is server-based (i.e. compatible with all email clients), has a complete back-office with a WrapMaker, reporting etc and it is FREE!

By: Suzanne Vara

Suzanne Vara — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:55:36 +0000

Lisa
It is maddening when we hear that email marketing is dead. Poor DJ Waldow, he has to be so over hearing that.

It is so easy to blame the medium and too many fall into the trap instead of looking at why the email was not opened and acted upon. Could it be that people really do not know how to build a list? Could they think that they have a real list of interested parties when they do not? Or could they have started the campaign too early and needed to work on the list? That is the first part and really one of the most, if not the most important component of the entire email campaign. Yes you have to have great content, message, call to action but you can have that and no readers or unengaged readers. Pointless.

On an other note, I do wish that when we were spammed that we could call the company out. I had to send the laptop to HP for a repair (which did not happen) and they wanted my email address. Low and behold, guess whose newsletter I am on. Bastards, you did not fix my laptop as it suddenly became my problem and you spam me?!!!) There should be a “Email Spammer” hashtag where we can just add the company and retweet the crap out of it. Then again, they are prob too busy spamming to notice. sorry, a lil rant.

Always the best articles here and btw it was my pleasure to have a few min of your time at BWE. You totally rock and hope to have a chance to bump into you at another conference.

@SuzanneVara

By: Sheila Scarborough

Sheila Scarborough — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:51:19 +0000

Mail Chimp offers an option called Time Warp that stagger-sends your email around the world, based on recipient time zones. Pretty cool.

By: Jill Whalen

Jill Whalen — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:36:01 +0000

Shhh….It’s much better when everyone else things that email marketing is dead. Makes my email newsletter stand out even more. Now you had to go and ruin everything!

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:01:10 +0000

Wow, Natalie. Thanks for the awesome comment. It sounds like you’re really being smart about how you’re using email marketing. I love that you’re using your eBook as incentive for people to join your newsletter and become more engaged in your company. I think people underestimate how powerful a motivator content can be. And, as Brian Clark noted in his keynote at BlogWorld, even if you give people 90 percent of the content for free, they’ll still sign up to get the remaining 10 percent because they don’t want to feel like they’re missing something.

I didn’t mean to fully ignore the suggestions people give you, however, sometimes I do think you need to dig and do your own research. Very often what people say they want and what they actually want are quite different. Either because they think there’s a “right” answer for what they should be asking for or because they don’t truly understand their own behavior. Don’t discount it, but do see if what they’re TELLING you and what they’re DOING are actually aligned.

That’s awesome your audience gave you so much feedback. It shows you’ve grown a really engaged email list. That’s something to be really proud of! :)

Thanks for taking the time to hop into the discussion.