The emfluence Blog

Wondering where you can catch up with the team from emfluence? Check out a few of our upcoming celebrity appearances:

We got the call last week from the Kansas City chapter of the Direct Marketing Association that three of our AMBITS submissions have won an award! We’re pleased as punch to be winning more AMBITS this year. We believe in judging our campaigns based not just on cool-factor and smooth style (which our clients can also boast), but on performance and return on investment. Kudos to the entire emfluence team and our winning clients on great work with great results!

We hear email marketers ask all the time: when is it ok to email to a business-to-business prospect? If you want to follow up with prospects after a trade show using your email service provider, can you? Should you automatically add prospects from demos or business meetings to your promotional email list?

Email marketing professionals will handle these differently, but as always, we think there are some best practices. What are the guidelines on when to send email b-to-b?

Our very own Marketing Manager, Jessica Best, will join the ranks of other industry folk as the newest contributor to the eMail Guide's blog. www.theemailguide.com/blog/…

In addition to beautiful 80 degree weather in January, Marketing Sherpa’s 2010 Email Summit once again proved to be a fact-packed conference about our beloved email marketing. Here are some of our favorite take aways:

Top Quotes at Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit 2010:

No matter what media you’re using, the more eyeballs, the better. And in today’s highly targeted world, getting in front of more relevant eyeballs is key. So, it’s not surprising that we hear from our clients all the time, “Can you help us grow our email list?” There are lots of great ways to grow email marketing list size, from search engine marketing to online promotions to banner ad campaigns. But, inevitably, the most popular follow up question is “Can we buy an email list?”

So, how do you leverage relevant marketing lists outside of your own subscriber list?

The swirling world of social media produces new platforms every day. Even “old” standards – facebook, twitter – are getting facelifts and making changes in user experience that effect the way marketers use social media to connect with interested prospects. On one hand, that means no matter when you decide to take the plunge into social marketing, you’re not that far behind: it all changes so fast, we’re all running just to keep up.

On the other hand, it makes social media look like a marathon you’re not sure how to jump in on. How do you start in something you don’t even understand? We’ve all heard a friend or colleague say “I just don’t get the point of Twitter.”

When you’re not sure where to start in a new platform, lurk to learn…

Let’s take Twitter as an example.

Check out the emfluence Flickr account for pics from yesterday’s MK12 presentation on the work they did for the movie Stranger Than Fiction and for a commercial for Swiss International Airlines.

Research says that up to 30% of your email list could turn over every year. With no official National Change of Email Address list, in a worst case scenario, you could lose over 80% of your email addresses in 5 years unless you take action to maintain your list. These email addresses represent valid prospects that originally told you they wanted your mail and reconnecting with them is still a lower cost than new customer acquisition.

Ok, so after reviewing some basic AdWords reports, you’ve managed to identify some pain points, make some bid changes, maybe even add and remove some keywords. All these changes are made and should help you on the way to having an effective paid search campaign that will deliver the results you’re looking for.

What else can you do?

Google makes a lot of data available to you within the AdWords interface that can give you additional insight into the true performance of your campaign.

The Search Marketing Expo in New York City (SMX – East) has invited emfluence VP of Digital Strategy, Todd Sandoval, to speak on a panel about Mobile Search Advertising in October.

According to a 2008 ReturnPath study, more than 75% of marketers who use email marketing aren’t taking advantage of personalization at all. Surprising, given that there’s solid evidence that even limited personalization boosts email response rates. And, with technology provided by virtually every Email Service Provider, it’s very easy to implement.

So what’s preventing marketing experts from using personalization in their email marketing campaigns?

What else can be said but "80s Night at the K"?  The emfluence team headed out to watch the Royals battle it out with the…

emfluence sponsored the Putting Contest at the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association’s 12th Annual Golf Tournament. The tournament is a fundraiser for KCDMA’s Educational Foundation and emfluence’s sponsorship was part of the contribution. The best part is, Dave not only got to give, he got to golf! Check out all the pics from the green, including the one qualifier for the big bucks, at our flickr account.

Gmail just announced on their blog that they’ll automatically allow images from some of its users’ contacts. Good news for email marketers who already encourage whitelisting from list subscribers, but there’s an important additional step.

Worldwide, marketers ideate and speculate on the perfect execution of email marketing. What gets the most opens, the most clicks and of course, the most conversions? What time of day and day of week is best to send an email marketing campaign? Which offer will work best? What graphic is most eye-catching?

Well, gather ‘round for the secret of creating that elusive perfect promotional email…

Imagine if your website had more than one doorway, i.e. the home page. What if you could roll out a welcome mat at each page of your site, making it possible for Joe Searcher to come in via the page that is most interesting to him?

Optimize your page well, friends, and it’s possible. So, how do you pick which keywords to target with Search Engine Optimization? How many terms can you optimize a single page or section for?

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So, you just finished up a rockstar online promotion and gathered thousands of potential prospects… but you didn’t ask them to opt-in to your emails (shame, shame). Or you have an existing transactional email relationship with a certain group of contacts, but they don’t receive your promo emails yet. What’s next?

emfluence and our client, Indigo Wild took home not one, but two AMBIT Awards this year and our Marketing Manager, Jessica Best, was named Kansas City’s Young Direct Marketer of the Year.

We’ve added some long overdue pictures to our Flickr account: Ones & Zeros (aka the biggest bash of 2008) through Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit in Miami last month with a speckling of around-the-office fun.

Getting in to the inbox comes down to two key concepts: Content and Reputation. In this issue of emsights, we’ll focus on Content. We’ll discuss how you can “Pre-Flight” your message to determine whether or not it’s likely to pass common Spam filters and show you how you can verify that your HTML code will render properly across a broad range of email clients.

Slight changes in copy and/or images can make a world of difference in the rendering and deliverability of your email campaign.  It seems like a…

Ok, as part of your Pre-Flight routine you’ve previewed your email in the 7 most important email clients. Now it’s time to see if they’re getting past the guard dogs, aka SPAM filters. Good code and good design are important, but not if nobody sees your campaign.

As an email marketer, you have plenty of challenges when it comes to getting your messages out the door and into the inbox. And getting in doesn’t mean the end of those challenges. A good Pre-Flight or Campaign Preview tool will allow you to view your message in some or all of these email clients before sending so you can fix or rearrange any issues before you deploy.

emfluence enters the WordPress blogging world! Check back for posts to this new (and improved) blog later this week. In the meantime, you can always visit our website: www.emfluence.com