The blogosphere is a buzz with tired arguments over whether or not social media signals the death of email. The most recent prediction comes from Matt Cain of Gartner, signaling that “by 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.” This very well might be true, for the 20% that need to collaborate, however it in no way replaces the need for bi-directional communication.

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.

I've been working in the email marketing space for many years. Periodically I see email promotions, or components of messages that trigger the, "why didn't I think of that?" reflex. On the rare occasion that I have those moments, I am compelled to write about them - and give kudos when they're due. So today, I pay homage to Southwest Airlines for providing me with a "why didn't I think of that" moment and for that I thank you.

This promotion almost completely makes a subject line strategy completely moot in driving open metrics for the Southwest Click 'n Save email program entirely, and in its place? Good 'ol fashioned bribery. It's genius! I mean, really, why didn't I think of that? It starts with a very direct subject line, "Winter fares on sale, plus a chance to win*!" I'll admit, you do have to open this message to see why this is so smart - but if you do, here's the treat: "Keep opening our e-mails and you could win free travel!" There it is, the bribe to continue opening their email. I love it! (check it out for yourself)

Now, as I scrutinize it more closely there are some opportunities to take a great program and make it outstanding. For example:

• - 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*"

Southwest has done a terrific job at incorporating content that is viral, engaging and fun in their email campaigns but unfortunately are not actively asking their subscriber base to share it or pass it along. The assumption is that the recipient may share with others, but if you don't ask you can't really expect it.

The other question that looms (which triggers a series of other questions based on the response), albeit a terrific promotion, what's the objective? I assume it is either to drive more opens or drive more subscribers. If it is the former, there must be a direct and compelling correlation between open and conversions. If so, is that correlation minimized because the open behavior is less genuine? If is the latter - then why is there no direct call to share with friends?

Or maybe, just maybe - it is just a fun way to gain entry in to a sweepstakes and I am making it way too complicated - which is ALWAYS a possibility. What do you think? Like it, love it, indifferent?

As StrongMail spends more time working with email marketers to accelerate their program through the social web, we find ourselves constantly reminding clients that email is still the preferred channel for customer communications with brands.

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!

It seems our clients are becoming more and more focused on automation. How can email marketers leverage technology to automate communication workflows, enhance relevance and in general, do more with less? Read my latest Email Insider Blog for some ideas on how StrongMail's clients are marching towards email marketing automation.

With the hundreds of emails that I receive on any given day, an email looking like this would get passed over very quickly in my inbox.

With so much competition in a person’s email inbox, it is critical to design your email to be effective with images on and off. With the images turned off, the majority of the email above does not tell a reader who it's from or what's the call to action.

Let me walk through an example that highlights the potential impact.

 > One in five emails is invisible and ineffective due to blocked images.
    - Email Experience Council (Jan 2007)

> Let's apply the statistic above to a mailing with 1 million delivered messages. 
    - 800,000 delivered with images on
    - 200,000 delivered with images off / blocked

> Assume 50% of emails with images off / blocked were opened.
    - 100,000 total emails potentially looked over in your readers' inboxes.

In this example, wouldn't you want to have an extra 100,000 people read your email? Especially when this can be easily accomplished by tweaking your template so it still offers valuable information when images are turned off.

In terms of ROI, a few small adjustments to your emails will allow you to see improvements across every category.

Yesterday, Yahoo announced its new social, extensible email Inbox, almost a year after Founder Jerry Wang unveiled it during his keynote address at CES. This new destination blends social media with smart inbox functionality to filter “important” emails and present those towards the top of your Inbox, pushing newsletters and other commercial communications down towards the bottom.

Because this functionality is linked to Yahoo’s social media functionality – you have to befriend someone in order for their emails to take priority – this will initially spell bad news for email marketers. It is unclear whether or not they will allow individuals to befriend a brand, like they can on Facebook or MySpace. And if they do, how will they determine who has the right to send priority email on behalf of that brand?

If you haven’t tested it yet, this might be a good time to look at StrongMail partner Goodmail. Their Certified Email product is a paid service that can ensure priority Inbox delivery to Yahoo though this period of uncertainty.

With 275 million users worldwide, Yahoo represents approximately half of the world’s webmail accounts. These changes will pose significant challenges to email marketers unless Yahoo offers them a way to engage with their recipients. But for now, we’ll have to wait and see how unpredictable inbox placement will affect our powerful marketing channel.

Having just finished MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit in Park City, Utah, I can say that the email marketing industry is definitely being impacted by the recession. However, not in the way that traditional advertising and trade shows are… email marketing is rising. Apparently, senior management was listening when marketers touted email’s high ROI, because now everyone wants a piece of email – and they want more of it.

The marketers at this event were the heads of email for major brands, including Marriott International, Overstock.com and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. General consensus was that the demand for email marketing within their respective organizations is increasing, and they’re challenged with determining how to satisfy the sharp rise in demand from the various divisions and departments that they service, without burning out their list through increased volume.

As Aaron Smith of Smith-Harmon recently pointed out in MediaPost’s Email Insider Newsletter, email volumes have already skyrocketed, increasing competition for Inbox real-estate. In 2009, it will be more important than ever for email marketers to focus on optimizing their email programs to achieve more with less. Keeping a close eye on contact frequency and email attrition rates will be paramount, as will clearly communicating the value of your email list in business terms order to manage internal expectations. Bob Frady of Live Nation gave an excellent presentation on this topic. By communicating the aggregate purchasing power of their opt-in list to senior management instead of what resulted from email click-throughs, he was able to raise email’s visibility and importance within his organization to a must have for every tour and a significant driver of revenue for his organization.

In addition to optimizing contact frequency and internal communication, marketers should look to Transactional Email inventory as a potential way to alleviate the demand for stand-alone promotions. Transactional Email is opened more than any other email communication, and that valuable real estate should be leveraged for targeted cross-sell and up-sell offers.

With a little creativity and a lot of elbow grease, we have the opportunity to prove email’s value in tough economic times and gain a seat at the marketing strategy table.

This afternoon, I was busy preparing for my panel at this week's MediaPost Email Insider Summit. Travel was confirmed, conference calls were rescheduled, and I took a look at the event agenda to plan my attendance at a variety of rock solid sessions to learn the latest developments in the email channel. I did not get very far. I stopped at the first morning’s keynote: "Next Generation: Does Email Have a Future?"

Come on. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit over dramatic? I know that at the end of the day this session is going to be an excellent opportunity for all of us to get a view into the new media channels that are redefining integrated marketing programs online, but do we need to go as far as to suggest that email is dying?

In recent weeks, I have been fortunate enough to see some exciting new programs that leverage social networks and experiential marketing to drive compelling brand experiences. Of particular interest was Tim Collins’ presentation at the Canadian Marketing Association event in Toronto entitled "Navigating Toward Marketing Mastery; Guideposts for a New Marketing Era." Mr. Collins is Senior Vice President, Experiential Marketing and Social Media at Wells Fargo. Tim walked the audience through a variety of unique and exciting programs at Wells Fargo, from the online community StageCoach Island to blogs like The Student LoanDown. Instead of killing email, these innovative programs are actually creating additional mail streams that need to be designed, deployed and managed.

Sure, the role of email will change as it becomes less isolated and more integrated with the rest of the direct marketing mix, but I am confident that email has a real future. So please, enough with the death email. The channel is alive and well, albeit a tad less sexy than a decade ago!

Recently, I participated in a discussion about event-based email marketing, and the best way to manage them. The question came down to whether it made sense to leverage enterprise marketing management systems (EMM) or technology from an on-premise or hosted email service provider.

First, based on what we are seeing in the market, there is certainly a healthy trend towards leveraging event-based email streams for marketing purposes. Not surprisingly, companies are working to improve the customer experience and the related value of their event-based email streams. When choosing the best solution to deliver these critical communications, the deciding factors usually boil down to these three:

Integration: Email solutions need to connect to core data sources in order to fully leverage significant investments in EMM and CRM systems. Email solutions also need to be able to write data back to these systems. While most leading ESP solutions have web services API’s that enable data transfer, the integration options are typically not flexible enough for an enterprise's IT department. This is the leading reason enterprises look to email modules within EMM solutions to handle email deployment.

Delivery Management and Transparency: If integration is the reason companies look to leverage an EMM or CRM solution for email deployment, delivery management and transparency is the reason they look elsewhere. Most EMM solutions lack strong deliverability management solutions. Reporting of failed deliveries is often weak, and that information is critical, particularly with event-based messaging. I have seen some scary cost modules that outline how expensive it can be in the call center when 10% of an enterprise's purchase confirmations are blocked or end up in the junk folder. Furthermore, reputation is becoming the key driver for inbox penetration. EMM and CRM solutions simply have little depth in this area.

Features: Finally, companies that look to enhance event emails are typically already using the email channel for promotional and marketing messaging. They require a level of features that enable flexible dynamic content, web-analytics integration and other advanced capabilities. Most EMM and CRM solutions have email “modules,” and these modules are not core parts of their applications, which can leave their capabilities “lacking” in a marketer's eyes. The result, EMM and CRM may be OK for some email streams, but will rarely meet an enterprise's broader requirements. Feature requirements are also the reason that enterprises are trashing their own home-grown applications and turning to technology providers for help.

The bottom line is that you want to verify that the solution you choose justifies the cost, meets your integration requirements and has the features you need. Regardless of how you decide to manage your event-based marketing streams, you'll also want to make sure you do it in a way that meets the recipient's expectations. Obviously, the email needs to arrive at the right time and contain pertinent information about the event at hand. Any promotional messages should be seen as relevant and adding value. If you start overstepping your marketing bounds, you'll pay the price in customer dissatisfaction and attrition.