Let's face it. People don't like advertising. They try and avoid it at all costs. They fast forward through commercials on their DVR and use pop-up blockers in their web browsers. The reason Facebook ads aren't living up to their potential is because people haven't opted-in to receive those messages... they don't want to see them!

So when Facebook shoves an ad in front of someone's face that says "35 Year Old Women in San Francisco Needed," they are trying to shoehorn relevant attributes about the visitor into an irrelevant ad. (Not to mention you are going to risk offending the woman by using her age in the ad. No woman wants to be reminded about how old she is, thank you very much.)

What’s even more disturbing are some of the more intrusive applications being created using Facebook Connect. No one wants to see what they thought was a private picture of their family staring back at them from a third party promotional application... whether it be for a video game or the Olympics. It's creepy.

Social Media is More Like Email Than You Realize
Conversely, by approaching social media as an opt-in channel, you are respecting the individuals that you're trying to target and are only communicating with those who are interested in hearing from you. This conforms with the spirit of social media and aligns with email marketing best practices. As any email marketer will tell you, opt-in marketing is significantly more effective than blasting a mass message to a rented list of names that someone claims has similar interests as what you're trying to market.

The social media marketing tools that emerge as effective will respect this and enable marketers to engage with brand influencers in a meaningful and effective way. This effort will be fueled by personal referrals and genuine recommendations that ring true because the people recommending your product or service genuinely care about it. The future of social media marketing has more to learn from email than advertising. It's about respect. Not violating my privacy and creeping me out.

Anyone that engages in a debate over which channel is superior is approaching this from the wrong angle. Not only do both channels complement each other from a marketing perspective, they are significantly more powerful when used together than either channel alone. What’s most interesting is that while the talking heads continue to debate the value of one channel vs. another, the 800 pound gorillas in the email marketing and social media spaces are answering this question for us by taking convergence to the consumer.

The Market is Shifting
In the past three weeks, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have all announced plans to integrate email and social media for their end users. Google and Microsoft plan to integrate social functionality into Gmail and Outlook respectively, and Facebook is rumored to be launching its own webmail service. These announcements are significant in that, if all three are successful, the consumer’s view of email and social media will become highly integrated during the next year or so. As email marketers, it is important to prepare for this shift by developing an integrated marketing strategy for the two channels now. Get ready for your viral marketing programs to become exponentially more powerful.

Double Opt-in vs. Single Opt-in
A lot of marketers struggle with whether they should build their email program using a double or single opt-in process. Single opt-in entails the subscriber checking a box to imply consent, whereas double opt-in also sends them an email requesting that they click on a link to confirm their intent to subscribe.

Email marketing purists and deliverability experts tend to favor double opt-in, because it ensures that only the most truly engaged and enthusiastic subscribers become members of your list. While double opt-in limits the size of your list, it theoretically increases the quality, which in turn increases response rates for programs across the board.

Dela Quist, the CEO of London-based email marketing agency Alchemy Worx, took an alternative view during his MarketingSherpa presentation. Assuming that a brand doesn’t send email to anyone who hasn’t provided their initial permission, Quist said "Double opt-in is one step too far. Email is the only marketing channel that you can unsubscribe from, so let them." He has a point. While double opt-in is wise for specific use cases (e.g. to stop people from seeding your list with bad email addresses), it may not be so wise to put up an extra barrier for subscribers that are truly interested in hearing from you.

Which approach is the right one? Marketers appear to be divided on the issue. One third of marketers use single opt-in, 17% use double opt-in and nearly half use a mix of both.

List Growth
On a related topic, many speakers at this year's event talked about list growth. A lot of great tips were presented, such as offering opt-ins at every touch point and most importantly, giving your subscribers valuable content that they choose to engage with. But whatever strategy you employ, capturing opt-in email addresses is critical. As Jeanne Jennings, Director of Email Product Development for Cahners Business Media stated in one session, "If you can get [website] browsers to opt-in to your list, you can market to them again. Otherwise they leave your site and are gone forever."

Everyone agreed that building your own list is significantly more targeted and effective than buying or renting. However, hybrid approaches can also be effective when executed properly. According to Jennings, 32 percent of marketers using co-registration see performance equal to that of their house list.

Email Frequency
With regard to email frequency, the ever provocative Dela Quist asked, "Why is email the only marketing channel where frequency is a dirty word? Stop beating yourselves up!" In every other marketing channel, frequency is seen as positive because it increases brand impressions. He illustrated the power of these impressions though a video by UK magician Darren Brown on the power of subliminal messaging. Quist proposes keeping inactive subscribers on your list and using the subject line as a branding opportunity. Just because they’re not opening your email doesn’t mean that seeing your brand in their inbox isn’t going to remind them to engage you in another channel.

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin from Marketing Experiments also presented a detailed study showing a direct correlation between email frequency and revenue for one retailer. The more email they sent, the more revenue it generated. If a recipient is engaged with your brand and you are providing them value, there is no such thing as mailing too often. It’s fairly certain that the millions of frenzied bargain hunters that subscribe to shopping sites like Gilt Group, HauteLook and Rue-la-la would be thrilled to get more than one email a day featuring access to exclusive designer sales.

On the opposite side of the issue was a case study with AirTran, which showed that raising frequency beyond three emails a week resulted in a 4X increase in unsubscribes. Such discrepancies highlight the importance of testing to determine the right approach for your business, but the key takeaway seemed to be that as long as your are providing value to your subscriber base, you shouldn’t be afraid to push the frequency envelope.

If you attended the event or have your own perspectives on any of the topics featured at this event, we encourage you to voice your opinions in the comments section.

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 Photos on Facebook >>

As usual, MarketingSherpa attracted a who’s who list of speakers from Dela Quist to Jeanne Jennings and Stephanie Miller, all providing practical advice on how to improve your email marketing programs. Topics included email creative optimization, design, copywriting, deliverability, social media integration and program strategy, with lots of great results to back up the recommendations.

I captured most of the key takeaways in my Twitter stream and have compiled everything into an archive that will remain accessible long after 10 days that Twitter content generally expires. I hope you enjoy it! It appears in reverse chronological order, so if you want to start from the beginning of the event, read the last tweet first and then proceed up from there.

Download MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2010 Twitter Recap >>

Looking for inspiration? StrongMail just released our Q409 Email Breakthrough Report, featuring some innovative ideas that you can use to rev up your existing campaigns.

A few of the ideas include:

• Build a list specifically themed around promotions, offering consumers first access the latest deals
• Integrate user-generated content to foster a sense of community through email
• Launch an “email marketing mini-series” to highlight time sensitive promotions
• Use email and social media integration to launch a viral marketing campaign designed to acquire new customers
• Run a promotion designed to boost email open rates

Download the full report for detailed examples of each of these tactics (with creative samples) and start thinking about how you can apply some of these concepts to your own email marketing programs.

http://www.strongmail.com/resources/whitepapers/wp-email-breakthrough-Q409.php

Maybe your closet isn’t the only thing that could use a little spring cleaning.

Knowing where your customers are in the customer lifecycle and sending them relevant messages for each stage is an effective way to increase conversions and customer satisfaction. As I write in my article, you can start out small and then expand your campaigns as you get more comfortable with it.

Today is Cyber Monday, so what is the consumer spending outlook for the 2009 holiday season? According to initial estimates, the prognosis isn’t great… but it’s not bad either. ShopperTrak, which measures traffic and sales in 500,000 brick and mortar retail locations across the country, estimates that Black Friday in-store sales hit $10.66 billion this year, an increase of 0.5 percent over 2008. The National Retail Federation is forecasting a 7.9% drop in combined offline and online sales versus Black Friday 2008 based on a poll of 4,985 consumers, however it also reported a traffic increase of 23 million visitors to online retail websites on Black Friday over 2008. According to the LA Times, it appears that consumers are still spending, but they are opting for reasonably-priced sale items and not choosing full-priced or luxury items. Fortunately for everyone involved, 87.1% of retailers are holding Cyber Monday sales, according to the NRF.

The most positive projection issued to date comes from comScore, estimating that US consumers spent $595 million online this past Friday, up 11% from 2008. Could it be that online commerce is seeing double-digit growth while brick and mortar stores continue to lose ground? It’s still too early to tell for certain, but it’s clear that consumers are becoming more and more comfortable transacting online.

This shift is important to note for marketers in every industry. As business moves increasingly online, it’s more important than ever to think holistically about your email communication strategy and integrate it with customer touch-points in other channels. Email is the conduit for business online and is a mission critical component of any online sales or communication strategy. If you’re still sending “email blasts” each time you need to promote a specific item, it’s time to re-evaluate your approach. Invest in the technology, tools, and resources that you need to build a comprehensive customer communications program leveraging all of the digital marketing channels that make sense for your business, because its future is online.

The fact remains that email remains a powerful direct marketing channel that generates real results. Despite the Wall Street Journal's infamous proclamation of email's demise, consumers continue to embrace it to communicate with friends and businesses. In fact, when it comes to sharing marketing offers and overall communications with businesses, consumers overwhelming choose email over social media. A recent MarketingSherpa study showed that 78% of consumers share online information via email, versus 22% who prefer social media, and a Harris Interactive poll found that an even higher percentage of consumers choose email to communicate with marketers over social media.

These statistics point to the health of email, but they don't mean that social media isn't experiencing tremendous growth in adoption and utility. Instead of choosing one channel over the other, marketers should look at ways to use them together. There are already natural connections between the two. A recent Nielsen study found that the more people use social media, the more time they also spend with email. That's not too surprising when you consider that social networks rely on sending their members email to keep them updated of new content updates and other changes.

When it comes to social media marketing, StrongMail has also seen a big impact from integrating social media into existing referral campaigns. By making it easy for consumers to share referral rewards with their networks and then track the results of their efforts, these integrated campaigns have generated significantly higher results than relying on email alone. Using this approach, CSN Stores generated a 3X lift in performance over its previous email campaign.

The bottom line is that email remains an extremely prevalent and useful communication tool that is well suited for direct marketing; however, marketers would be remiss not to see how social media can help augment their existing email marketing campaigns. Remember, when it comes to choosing an effective direct marketing strategy, it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Leverage email and social media for both their intrinsic and combined strengths, and your bottom line will thank you.

Working with StrongMail, CSN Stores developed a StrongMail Influencer campaign that incentivized current Rewards members with a credit to their Rewards account for each friend that enrolled in the program and made a subsequent purchase. Additionally, referred friends were also rewarded with a credit for extending the offer to their networks. CSN Stores then launched the StrongMail Influencer campaign via email to its Reward members and also featured it in the weekly CSN Recommends email newsletter.

Read the Full Case Study >>

Not only did the StrongMail Influencer-powered referral campaign increase reward program sign-ups by a factor of three, it significantly expanded its reach beyond CSN's existing customer base. For every 1.8 customers from the initial mailing who shared the email, one new CSN Rewards account was created, and one in ten of those new members went on to complete a purchase.

This is a powerful example of what's possible when you leverage the natural synergies of email marketing and social media to acquire new customers. If your current referral campaigns aren't leveraging social media, you should consider refreshing them to boost program performance.

• - Socialize this heck out of this email and ask subscribers to share this great promotion with their social networks



• - Leverage sites like Twitter, Facebook and even TripAdvisor to tell the masses - further minimizing the need for a subject line



• - Put it right in the subject line, "Open our email and you could win free roundtrip tickets*"

Because their transactional email streams had a 30% higher open rate than their promotional email, FootSmart sensed an opportunity to monetize those unique views with a fresh approach to their transactional email strategy. By integrating StrongMail’s transactional email platform with their customer database, web analytics platform/product recommendation engine (CoreMetrics) and product reviews platform (Bazzarvoice), FootSmart was able to implement relevant offers into their transactional email based on past purchase history and consumer ratings and reviews. The results were impressive, with FootSmart projecting an additional $750K in additional revenue from the program in 2009. The revenue generated per each email from their cart abandonment program alone jumped from $1.95 to $4.00. Not only did this double revenue for this program, it’s significantly more than the $0.15 driven by a typical promotional email.

Here are links to the following resources:

Marketing Sherpa Article >>

Press Release >>

Full Case Study >>

If you’re not already leveraging your transactional email streams such as order confirmations, shipping notices, password reminders and welcome emails, to drive conversions, there’s never been a better time to start. StrongMail can help you launch a new program from scratch, or revitalize an existing program for greater returns.

When I tell one of my three children to hold the railing when coming down the stairs or not to touch the hot oven, they are taking advantage of my years of experience negating minor burns and abrasions.

In my non-mommy role, there is hardly a day that goes by that I’m not explaining to a colleague, prospect or client the “why” of the methodology behind an email strategy or the technology that drives it. The moniker of “email expert” didn’t come without years of research, hundreds of hours of coding experience, industry conferences and countless debates on best practices with fellow email cronies. Did I also mention that I’m a very humble person? (smile) Title aside, I’ve earned my email chops and in the end, what’s in my head can help you. All you need to do is take notes and be ready for answers that you might not want to hear.

As email marketers, we are all at different stages of our career and the sophistication level of the marketer on the other end of the line often correlates with the amount of information that is digested and eventually incorporated. My role is more about taking a concept and serving it up in a way that is understandable from the tech folks to those looking at the bottom line. With the tug and pull of getting the most of your email program in the shortest amount of time, those little nuggets of goodness might get lost. Sure, search long enough and you can eventually find someone who will tell you what you want to hear; however, good things don’t come easy. Engaging with an email expert and giving them your ear can definitely make things easier.

I liken my role in the email world as more of an email doctor. I can help fix problems but also provide a bit of insight on the best plan to keep your email programs healthy and fit, as well as ideas on how to grow big and strong. So I might say “because I said so,” but know that I’ve got your best interests at heart. If you have got the time to listen, I’ll gladly explain why.

Social media is widely billed as the new paradigm for marketers. Everyone wants a piece of it, but many email marketers are still struggling with how to leverage this new channel to drive greater returns from their existing campaigns. Today, StrongMail announced the results of our first case study on the subject, profiling how personal financial site Mint.com leveraged the two channels together to drive new customer acquisition, and the results are impressive.

First a little background on StrongMail Influencer, a new product from StrongMail that enables email marketers to integrate social functionality into their email marketing campaigns and track the results. Influencer campaigns harness the psychology of the social web to determine what offers will inspire recipients to share a given brand with their friends or colleagues, and provides them with a rich social media interface in which to share. Using Influencer, email marketers can identify, motivate, track and re-market to their top social media influencers to exponentially increase brand engagement and response. Watch a Quick 2-minute Demo >>

Mint.com was trying to increase the size of their user base and wanted to leverage social media to tap the power of their already engaged opt-in list. Working with StrongMail, Mint.com was able to identify key motivators for social sharing among its users, and developed two offers and a control group for an A/B Test. After testing the offers, Mint.com quickly determined the winner, which surprisingly was an offer for free access to beta features. (The other offer was a free iPod for every three friends that signed up.)

Mint.com deployed the winning campaign to the rest of their opt-in list, resulting in a 48% unique open rate. Of those, over 10 percent became "Influencers" for the Mint.com brand by sharing the invitation with an average of 5 friends each, significantly expanding its reach. These invitations generated an unprecedented 61 percent click-through rate among friends viewing the invitation and every 2.6 invite clicks on the invitation led to one friend becoming a Mint.com user. Ultimately, Mint.com was able to generate over 8,000 new accounts as a result of this campaign. A copy of the full case study is posted here, if you would like more detail.

StrongMail is helping email marketers across a wide range of industries drive more value from their email marketing campaigns using StrongMail Influencer. Contact us today if you would like to discuss how we can help you effectively leverage social media to drive increased brand awareness, new customer acquisition, and new revenue.

Nowhere is this more true than in service-oriented or transactional emails. Read my latest MediaPost Email Insider post as a reminder about how critical it is to ensure that your transactional email streams are just as relevant as your Facebook Fan page!