Wrap-up - Effective Email Marketing - 1/29/99

From: <richard_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:51:45 -0600 (CST)

Below is a special mailing to The Online Advertising
Discussion List about the Effective Email Marketing
conference, written by Andy Bourland, publisher of
The ClickZ Network. You will receive these reports in
addition to your normal Online Ads posts/digests.

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Effective Email Marketing Wrap-up:
Walk Toward The Light

By Andy Bourland
Publisher
The ClickZ Network

I arrived in Atlanta with a great sense of anticipation: At
last! An email marketing conference! Why hasn't this been
done before? It's so obvious.

But as I prepared to leave, my thoughts took on a new
direction... I'm wondering why email marketing isn't more
mainstream. I'm wondering why the major ad management
solution vendors haven't extended their tools to offer the
kind of tracking that email marketers need every bit as much
as their web site clientele does...

Why aren't vendors offering solutions for web sites to
build, hone and develop their opt-in lists? Why aren't the
major networks and rep firms offering highly trackable text
banner ads right along with the animated GIF and Java
banners they offer to their clientele?

Why aren't we reading rumors in Jacobyte about late night
hush-hush meetings between Kevin O'Connor and Rosalind
Resnick? Or 24/7's impending acquisition of Worldata or
WebPromote?

We've been so web-centric in our thinking that we overlook
how email is far more vital to our day-to-day business lives
than the web will ever be. We forget that email subscribers
are involved with us in some form or fashion every single
day -- or at least weekly. We forget that meanwhile, we
manage to visit the web sites we are MOST passionate about
only two or three times a week at best.

I think about my fellow web site publishers.... Have they
noticed that the downward pressure on their CPMs have forced
them into taking deals they never thought they would
consider? At the same time, have they noticed standard
opt-in lists are getting $150 CPM, while the more focused
and desirable lists are going for anywhere from $250 to $300
CPM? Has it occurred to them that these are the same people
who are coming to their sites?

I think about my media buyer friends at the interactive
agencies, poring through click-through reports from their
most recent banner campaigns. With click rates declining,
they wonder just how they are going to explain this. Think
on this: Response rates from opt-in mailings to similarly
targeted lists are performing anywhere from 3 to 10 times
better than banner campaigns.

I'm feeling like that angel we will all see one day at the
bright end of that long, dark tunnel... come to the light!
Walk slowly toward the light! Ignore that darkness around
you... just walk toward the light!

Examine your own habits. Where do you spend more of your
time, on email or the web? My guess is that 99 out of 100 of
you, if you are honest with me, will say email. (As for the
one other... I don't believe you.)

And think about it... if you are in the market for
something,
don't you WANT to see ads about that product?

With my own two auto leases coming to an end in the next six
months, my radar is up every time I hear ads for mini-vans
and four-wheel drives. In fact... I wouldn't mind opting in
to
a few auto company lists so that I could be courted by the
various makers. I'd just as soon eat broken glass than to
have to go back to the dreaded car dealership and deal with
the hapless salesman and his evil manager.

Why not have the various car companies fighting for my
business? What a treat that would be!

Really, that's what opt-in is about. A list member is
expressing this: I have a need or an interest in a type of
product or service. So please, keep me posted on any deals
or new developments.

Don't get me wrong: Targeted banner ads are an integral part
of any ad campaign. But email marketing should increasingly
be part of the online marketing mix. Clearly, it's a
movement whose time has come.


Perhaps we haven't gotten over the nightmare of Spam yet.
Trust me on this: This too shall pass.

At some point, even the densest Spammer is going to figure
out that there is far more money to be made in marketing
products to people who are interested in buying them, rather
than haphazardly stuffing obnoxious, unwanted emails into
online mailboxes.

Perhaps even our brothers and sisters in the world of direct
marketing and telemarketing will come to realize that opt-in
applies to them, too.... Come to the light!

But I've gotten away from the issue at hand here. The point
is this: The kind of solutions they were talking about over
the past couple of days here at the Effective Email
Marketing Strategies Conference are not exotic, unusual,
off-the-beaten-path ideas. There's no smoke, mirrors or
magic. These are common sense, mainstream ideas.

My friends at @d:tech and IMI and Thunderlizard and
Forrester and Jupiter should include email marketing
solutions as a constant on their agendas. It's part of the
Internet experience. You can't avoid it anymore.

So what about the conference itself? Is that to say that
this was God's gift to Internet conferences? Well... not
exactly.

Day one went very well. All the speakers, despite their
affiliation with companies that actually sell solutions for
email marketers, managed to provide useful information to
the 100 or so attendees. Day two... well, that's another
story. Many whipped out their PowerPoint slide shows,
modified a slide or two for the conference they were at, and
pitched products from the podium.

Mind you, it's more than okay in my book to make a good
pitch for your product at a conference. But the conference
managers should provide a healthy outlet for that sort of
thing. Set aside a handful of conference rooms and include
time on the agenda for sponsors to pitch their wares. People
will gladly attend. It's good information when you're in the
market for it... I mean, when you opt-in!

But when you expect good content and get a pitch... it feels
a bit like being Spammed.

IIR (http://www.iir-ny.com) is not a company that is widely
known in Internet marketing circles. But I'd strongly
recommend that the conference heavyweights in this business
do not ignore them. In addition to this email marketing
conference, it has some pretty interesting-looking seminars
coming up -- from creating smart web sites to forging
performance-driven Internet partnerships.

At the same time, IIR could learn a few things from our
friends who are well established in the world of web
marketing conferences. Like how to create an area for lots
of exhibitors, throw parties that are replete with
schmoozing opportunities. IIR could also learn how to
exercise the kind of editorial control that Thunderlizard
does over its speakers to prevent the excessive overlap of
content and sales pitches we witnessed on day two of this
event.

But I would never want to underestimate a company that puts
on almost a thousand seminars a year all over the world.

So what kind of grade have the IIR folks earned on the
ClickZ Card?

Had they stuck to the program of quality content on day one,
it would have been an easy A. But the sales pitches,
overlapping content, and the string of last minute
replacement speakers on day two pulled their grade down.

I have to give them a B- on content. Truth be told, I'd
normally have given them a C+, but they earned extra credit
for identifying a good niche and lining up an appropriate
group of speakers. Unfortunately, I have to give them an
incomplete on SchmoozEvents, networking and exhibitors (only
ONE lonely exhibitor!). It's just not part of their gig.

But opt-in to the IIR mailing lists. The company is
definitely worth paying attention to.


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Copyright (C) 1999 ClickZ Corporation. All rights reserved.
 May be reproduced in any medium for noncommercial purposes
as long as attribution is given.

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Received on Fri Jan 29 1999 - 11:17:14 CST