I receive too many email offers and promotions: 2006 – 77%, 2008 – 59%, 2010 – 49%

I delete most email advertising without reading it: 2006 – 73%, 2008 – 63%, 2010 – 59%

Most email ads I receive don’t offer anything that interests me: 2008 – 63%, 2010 – 55%

I have a separate email account I use just for receiving email advertisements: 2006 – 16%, 2008 – 15%, 2010 – 10%

I often buy things advertised to me through email: 2006 – 5%, 2008 – 6%, 2010 – 4%

One could come to all sorts of conclusions based on the research, however, I thought there were two telling figures. First, the decrease of the deletion rate among users is a highly positive takeaway. There’s really no way to spin the statistic that isn’t positive.

The one negative I thought was pretty glaring was the decrease in the mindset of people believing email was a great way to find offers. Though from 2008-2010 there was an increase, so that number could jump again in 2012.

All in all, I think the statistics were mostly positive. People believe they aren’t receiving too many email offers, and they are deleting less.

Their partnership allows WeReward to draw in new customers through their mobile app, and then subsequently develop stronger relationships with Constant Contact’s email marketing tool.

Steve Johnson, vice president, partners, for Constant Contact, seemed excited about the partnership, “Consumers are moving away from traditional coupons and using mobile applications that allow them to save money by discovering new places and products the exact moment they need them.”

“By teaming up with Constant Contact, WeReward will deliver industry-leading online marketing tools in conjunction with their 21st-century, loyalty solution to help close the loop for businesses seeking to build long-lasting relationships with their customers.”

In 2011, mobile marketing spending is expected to exceed $1 billion. Forecasting shows us the figure will increase to $2.5 billion in 2014.

Ted Murphy, founder and CEO of IZEA, Inc., the parent company of WeReward, was beaming about the partnership as well, “Everyday we empower consumers to check-in and make money at over 15 million businesses throughout the country. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of purchases with users sharing these experiences through their social networks.”

Murphy continues, “What makes this partnership so exciting is how we can now take this one-step further by connecting the customer and business through Constant Contact’s powerful email marketing tool. This combination gives our users the ability to receive real time communications from their favorite businesses and products in a manner that is most convenient for them Ð through their mobile device, email, or both. For merchants, this represents the ultimate marketing solution Ð the opportunity to start an email and social media relationship with every person who walks in their store.”

If you visit WeReward right now, you can sign up for Constant Contact through their dashboard.

It’s refreshing to see partnerships like this spring up, instead of hearing the same old “such and such is destroying email marketing”. If this partnership can prove successful, it goes to show just how diverse and useful email can be with these new advertising tools springing up.

During this experiment, he tested four hypotheses:

1. Email will outperform social media in terms of marketing.

2. Conversion rates will increase.

3. The amount of unsubscribes would increase.

4. Frequent email sends would show up on spam reports

For the experiment, Massey selected 2,000 names from their main list. The subscribers had received emails on a semi-annual basis. The content for all the emails sent consisted of a non-promotional subject line, light copy, online based content, and at least one offer.

Here are his findings for each hypothesis. They are very interesting, but as I stated earlier, results may vary.

1. The first hypotheses turned out to be true. Earlier in the year, the blog tested a social media experiment which tried to boost traffic through a healthy social campaign. The email test blew it out of the water. The email experiment nearly doubled the traffic brought in from the social campaign.

Another interesting find of the experiment is that search engine traffic increased along with the direct email click-through.

2. For the time period during the email test, conversion rates increased by nearly 145%. One of their offers in the email was a workshop registration which bolstered its numbers, generating $1,300 in sales.

3. The experiment did cause a rise in unsubscribes. However, Massey listed the figures as an acceptable amount of unsubscribes. In conducting the experiment, they were able to weed out unlikely buyers while increasing conversions.

4. At no point in the experiment did the blog’s email service provider notify the company of increased spam reports. Opens did drop, but that doesn’t necessarily relate to anything spam related.

Massey makes a good point in his experiment, that an email campaign should be sent as often as the content allows. Which is why you shouldn’t automatically assume that based on the experiment a daily email is worth sending. Because you might end up with different results entirely.

Ken Taylor, co-creator of VMBiz explains further the benefits of the service, “What we have developed is the power of television advertising delivered with the convenience and cost efficiency of email. Basically it’s a TV ‘infomercial’ production of up to 2 minutes duration about your company presenting the benefits of why a customer should be doing business with you which is delivered directly to your target audience via email”

“The type of email advertising that the company offers is a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising and your reach is far more accurate if you take into account you can target your audience and harness the power of viral marketing. We script, produce, shoot, host and stream the advertising.”

It certainly is hard to argue with Taylor’s reasoning, though there are reasons why the idea hasn’t quite reached a heightened sense of popularity. First, while video email commercials are cheaper than traditional TV commercials, it’s still more expensive than text or static image based email campaigns. Then you have to look at stats to see if the videos lead to greater exposure than other campaigns.

Another hurdle for TV email is the mindset of users. Many use their email for communication, and quick contact with others. A video embed is something which simply doesn’t compute with a lot of people. Thus, leading to many video emails being overlooked.

While there are some roadblocks, there are many potential benefits which could send video emails soaring in popularity. While many people don’t have video on the brain when sifting through emails, their overall awareness of online video is increasing. As viewership for sites such as YouTube, and Hulu increase so will the overall scope of how video is perceived online. Thus, providing a potential sky rocketing investment for the future.

Another added benefit of video emails is engaging a user on a different level than text/image campaigns. There’s a reason that TV advertising resonates with so many; it’s because they are much more engaged with video than simply reading or looking at pretty picture.

It’s difficult to gauge for sure at this point, but seeing video email advertising grow and expand it’s reach certainly has to pique the interest of many.

The reasoning behind VMBiz can be found in the company’s slogan: “Giving you the power of TV advertising with the ease of email”. It certainly sounds like a solid premise, and one which could potentially grow as online video awareness increases.

Ken Taylor, co-creator of VMBiz explains further the benefits of the service, “What we have developed is the power of television advertising delivered with the convenience and cost efficiency of email. Basically it’s a TV ‘infomercial’ production of up to 2 minutes duration about your company presenting the benefits of why a customer should be doing business with you which is delivered directly to your target audience via email.”

“The type of email advertising that the company offers is a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising and your reach is far more accurate if you take into account you can target your audience and harness the power of viral marketing. We script, produce, shoot, host and stream the advertising.”

It certainly is hard to argue with Taylor’s reasoning, though there are reasons why the idea hasn’t quite reached a heightened sense of popularity. First, while video email commercials are cheaper than traditional TV commercials, it’s still more expensive than text or static image based email campaigns. Then you have to look at stats to see if the videos lead to greater exposure than other campaigns.

Another hurdle for TV email is the mindset of users. Many use their email for communication, and quick contact with others. A video embed is something which simply doesn’t compute with a lot of people. Thus, leading to many video emails being overlooked.

While there are some roadblocks, there are many potential benefits which could send video emails soaring in popularity. While many people don’t have video on the brain when sifting through emails, their overall awareness of online video is increasing. As viewership for sites such as YouTube, and Hulu increase so will the overall scope of how video is perceived online. Thus, providing a potential sky rocketing investment for the future.

Another added benefit of video emails is engaging a user on a different level than text/image campaigns. There’s a reason that TV advertising resonates with so many; it’s because they are much more engaged with video than simply reading or looking at pretty pictures.

It’s difficult to gauge for sure at this point, but seeing video email advertising grow and expand it’s reach certainly has to pique the interest of many.

David Zinberg, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, is happy with the outcome of the investigation, “We are pleased with the decision of the FTC staff, as we have cooperated fully throughout the investigation.”

“We take very seriously our, and our marketing partners’, obligations relating to email marketing. This favorable result will allow us to concentrate on our core business.”

The FTC’s decision follows other good news for Bidz.com concerning an attempted class action lawsuit in California. The courts denied a request for class action certification, which stated that Bidz engaged in unfair business practices. Upon the decision, Bidz settled with the plaintiffs for a lower amount than what the suit would have listed. The lawsuit was related to the FTC investigation, as it was attempted because of failing to honor users’ opt-out requests.

While most people who have difficult unsubscribe processes won’t be sued or investigated, this story proves a point which can be learned by all email marketers. When running an opt out system, be sure to allow for an easy unsubscribe. You might not get a lawsuit thrown your way, but it will cause a backlash in brand image. I’m sure Bidz will go through some struggles from disgruntled users.

I recently wrote of the risks concerning aggressive opt-out campaigns, and some of the pitfalls one can run into. Trust is your most valuable ally in an email marketing campaign, you would do well not to turn it into an enemy.

Opt-In Strengths

- Establishing trust with your users, allowing them to decide to receive emails or not.

- Obtain quality response from your campaign, as people who sign up obviously are interested in what you have to say or sell.

- Less complicated to track.

- More apt to have users spread the word about your site. The stronger the loyalty, the better word of mouth.

Opt-In Weaknesses

- Lower subscriber rate

Opt-Out Strengths

- Higher Subscriber rate

- A better chance for brand image to spread among the community

- Chance for customer loyalty to be earned, especially for those who may not have returned to your site otherwise

Opt-Out Weaknesses

- Harder to track

- Chance that users might be turned off from your site, if they must sign up for a newsletter

- Word of mouth could come back to bite

Looking at both lists of strengths and weaknesses, you might be apt to simply say ‘Opt-In’ is the best option. For your particular situation this could be correct, but perhaps not. First, you should throw out any pre-conceived notion that an opt-out system is evil. Quite the opposite in fact; having an opt-out email campaign could end up helping you gain customer loyalty.

When you’re first starting out, the safe route is to provide your users the option to sign up for emails. People like to feel in control, and to receive an email they don’t want from a new site or service could do some massive harm. Establishing a strong core of loyal users should be the road you start out on. The key to running a successful opt-in campaign is to be patient. Subscribers might seem to come slow at first, and they probably will. Keep going strong and provide incentives to sign up.

Leading an aggressive opt-out campaign is for those who like to take risks, or has a highly established presence in a particular community or in general. The first rule of having an opt-out system, is to make the option of stopping emails to be made as simple as possible. You’re already taking a risk by sending emails which may or may not be wanted; you don’t want to lose any more points for a difficult unsubscribe system.

Something most people forget when concerning opt-out campaigns, is they can often lead to stronger loyalty. People visit all kinds of sites throughout their day, many times at a fast pace. They might look over an email signup, even though they might end up wanting to subscribe. It happens more often than one might think, and simply having them automatically added to your list after signing up for your site or service could gain you healthy returns.

Before deciding on an email campaign, take an inventory of your site. Find where your assets are, and what your weaknesses are. If your site is at an alarming low, perhaps an aggressive opt-out campaign might drive the numbers back up. Just don’t jump into anything without weighing the consequences.

With Click 3G, ClickSquared has attempted to assist both the self-service and full service marketer. Here’s a list of features found in their new platform:

- Consolidation of client data into a single marketing data stream
- Campaign management allows for key definition of target segments, audience levels, and more.
- Capable of managing multi-wave campaigns
- Tracks personal and dynamic content along a wide variety of channels, including email. This allows marketers to track multiple content fluctuations in a campaign.

ClickSquared CEO Wayne Townsend, provides insight to what makes Click 3G useful. “Now more than ever, engaging each and every customer is critically important. As a result, marketers need a platform that enables them to dynamically and nimbly manage a growing number of customer touch points and interactions.”

“In addition, this comprehensive offering allows our clients to serve up real-time, multi-channel marketing campaigns in a highly-targeted, automated fashion. Never before have marketers been able to seamlessly orchestrate cross-channel programs in this manner.”

ClickSquared has been offering marketing solutions since 1999, specifically in the area of email. Since its official use in 2008, Click 3G has been adopted by 60% of their client base. If you’d like to learn more about ClickSquared’s email marketing solutions,click here for more information.

There are a few ways to go about discovering your user’s intent for email. First, is the direct approach where you can simply poll your readers and discover what they get most from their email. This approach might be wrong if you don’t have a trusting relationship with your readers. You can try the guess-and-check method, and request feedback about how to makes your emails more relevant in the future.

Once you’ve discovered a healthy campaign option, you then have to shape your email to match your findings. This can be difficult, especially if you’re used to conducting campaigns a certain way. There are a couple of general rules to live by though, and remembering these can help increase user activity.

Communication based emails can be tricky to develop. What should always be in the back of your mind is making your campaign feel natural. If your readers open emails to directly communicate, they don’t necessarily care about statistics or cold hard numbers. They want to hear from you, as a person and perhaps be allowed to respond back.

On the flip side of the equation, some people don’t care to communicate with their email. They simply use the tool as a means for finding deals, being alerted for various websites they’re apart of. They could care less about what you directly have to say. Thus, you should use this to your advantage. Here is where enticing readers with a financially beneficial title would come in handy. These folks might not want to directly communicate with you, but that doesn’t mean they’re uninterested in a good deal.

Email Marketers have it easy compared to the days of old. Email accounts are a dime a dozen now, and most people have multiple accounts. They generally use these accounts for different reasons, so it makes it easier on you to profile your readers. If Johnson proved anything in his article, it’s that people will surprise you with their email usage.

Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop had this to say about the figures, “When consumers’ purse strings tighten, savvy marketers remain respectful but attentive, so their brands are top of mind when their customers are once again ready to buy.” He continues, “Today’s marketers are mindful of the important role relationship building plays in a successful marketing strategy, and they understand the unique ability of email to engage customers.”

Customer engagement continues to be a high priority for most marketers. Along with engagement, behavioral targeting proved to be effective. Sending emails to customers based on prior open and click trends worked adequately for 28 percent of the marketers surveyed.

One of the main concerns of marketers continues to be what the survey refers to as ‘inbox clutter’. I’m not sure a survey was needed for that revelation, as it’s been a concern of marketers for quite some time. Coupled with this, many are struggling to provide content relevant to potential readers.

What I consider the most interesting statistic of the survey, is the number of respondents who will be incorporating social media into their campaigns. Eight out of 10 people surveyed plan to incorporate social media somehow into their campaigns. Along with social media, 38 percent will add some sort of SMS option.
This was quite an interesting survey to absorb. While many marketers are worried about the overall state of the economy, it seems most are prepping for an improving or stagnant year. This tells me there might be some underlying optimism for email marketing in a down economy. This really shouldn’t be a huge surprise, as email marketing has relatively low budgets compared to other marketing campaigns. Here’s hoping for a good 2010 to everyone reading this.