The Direct Marketing Assn. in the UK recently announced that email marketing grew by 19% in the year ended March 2008.

Email marketing represented over 25% of direct marketing budgets. The Internet followed with 17%.

A relatively new marketing category, mobile messaging, increased by 8%. Though still a small segment of direct marketing budgets, it currently accounts for only 1% of total expenditures. However, I just attended a teleseminar about mobile messaging…this is going to continue to be a hot (and growing) topic in the future.

Want to know how the remainder of marketing budgets were spent? Marketing Week reports it all.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

All of us want to build our opt-in lists. Your subscriber list is worth its weight in gold.

But, while many people brag about the size of their lists, the truth is that size means nothing if your subscribers are not responsive. Just because list member don’t unsubscribe, doesn’t necessarily mean they are paying attention to your emails.

A case in point is forcing your customers to opt in to get product updates and other information (i.e. affiliate programs), when you really intend to use it to blast them with daily offers.   You are forcing them to make a decison: continue to get information from you that they didn’t ask for or miss out on important product enhancement details.

Don’t make your customer sorry that they ever purchased from you. Consider maintaining two lists:

1. product updates and fixes; and
2. general email list

If you are adamant about emailing purchasers, at least don’t make the mistake of bombarding them frequently with third party email offers (especially if those offers don’t pertain to their original purchase from you). Otherwise, you not only stand to lose potential affiliate commissions, but also future product upgrades or new product packages.

Have you tested the responsiveness of your list lately?  Share your results below!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Adam Vitale has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years for spamming 1.3 million AOL subscribers. In addition to his sentence in a Manhattan federal court, Vitale was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL in restitution.

Vitale’s partner, Todd Moeller, had already been sentenced in November 2007 to 27 months.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

If you’re like the average person, you’ve never spent much time cleaning your email list. The longer you’re online – and building your list – the more important it is to do so.

There’s a great article at Workz that provides a detailed list of the types of “dead” addresses to eliminate.

The ones I’ve encountered most frequently are the bogus address, typos, and people who move over time and don’t update their records. This list talks about even more examples and is well worth your time to read it over.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Recently, a product launch took place that caused most email inboxes to go into overdrive over the debate of forced vs. hidden continuity programs. If that type of mental fencing interests you, there are plenty of forums and blogs bantering about both sides of the issue.

From the response, it was clear that many of the prospects reaching that sales page (the majority via email), did not recognize that it was obligating them to more than a small shipping fee. Again, I’m not here to argue the merits of the marketing. But I think we can agree that if a purchaser didn’t realize – for whatever reason – that they were obligating themselves to $29.95 a month, they might be a wee bit aggravated to discover this on their credit card.

I received two emails on this subject from marketers who are friends of mine. One seemed to be the standard affiliate “copy and paste” job that screamed FREE about every third word! The email in no way cautioned List Owner A’s readers to carefully read the sales page.

The other email was pretty ingenious. The subject line and first sentence said:

Subject: “I Hate XXX’s Method of Marketing……”

….but I LOVE his product!”

Rather than cutting, pasting, landing on “GO” and collecting $200, this marketer positioned himself as someone who cared about his list. He pointed out the terms to which they’d be agreeing and even told them what to do if they did not want to continue to be billed monthly.

But, he went on to say that even though he didn’t agree with the method, you owed it to yourself to purchase this product. Since he owned the original product (from which this one was based), he was able to back up his opinion as to why it was a great offer that shouldn’t be missed.

My impression? The first marketer wanted my money.

Period.

The other marketer recommended a tool that, he felt, would benefit my business. He even cautioned me to read the fine print.

Which one used the Law of Reciprocity? If I was predisposed to buy this product, who do you think I’d buy from?

My mastermind group refers to me as the “Moral Compass”. I would hope that over time that second marketer outshines the others because s/he realizes that you can make great money while treating your readers with respect.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
Get Response

My last post discussed email message length and why you might considering trimming your messages. I promised to rewrite that blog article into a shorter post intended to be sent to my readers in an email. (Note: The original word count of the first article was 416 words.)

Readers Don’t Like Ramblers

Want your messages read? Keep them interesting, succinct, and to-the-point. Quality, not quantity, is the best philosophy to employ.

Here’s why:

1. Preview Panes provide only a portion of the viewing area, forcing your readers to continuously scroll down.

2. Text-based Emails (the majority I receive) can bore your readers if too long. There are no design or textual ways to break up the text. If your text isn’t compelling, they will see reading it as a chore.

3. Harder to Scan. While I can quickly scan headlines, subheads and bullets on a web page, it doesn’t translate well to an autoresponder message.

Ask yourself:

• What’s the #1 point you are trying to convey?
• Can you say it in a few paragraphs so your email is “above the fold”?
• If not, can you include bullets or one-line paragraphs?

Great!

You may find it easier to edit your message an hour or day later. That makes it easier to spot and trim necessary fat.

———————————————————–

(The above message is 178 words; a reduction of more than 40%).

What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

“Back in the day”, the only really long emails I received from business owners were ezines. In comparison with newsletters, autoresponder messages were relatively short and generally conained one thought per message.

Since emailing entire sales letters seems to be the norm these days, the question often arises as to how long is too long? Does size really matter?

An old rule of thumb, which can be applied here, is to take as much time as - but not more than - you need to make your point. If you tend to run at the mouth like I do (!), it’s important to become cognizant of that fact.

While you can get away with long sales letters on a sales page, don’t assume this effectiveness translates over to your readers’ inboxes. Here’s why:

• Preview Panes. I, for one, read most of my email in a preview pane. That means I am seeing a very small portion of the message and, therefore, need to endlessly scroll to get through it.
• Text-based Emails. The majority of emails I receive are text-based. While the text on a web-based sales letter is broken up by tables, color, font changes, etc., that’s not the case with text-based. A long sales letter is PAINFUL to wade through, IMHO!
• When I reach a web page, I normally scan the headline, subheads and bullets, then decide if I want ot read all or most of the sales page. That’s not as easy to do in an email.

It’s more effective to write shorter, succinct messages for your autoresponder campaign, than to have a few that are so long that few people will read them. Try to keep your information “above the fold” or, at most, the length of one printed page.

If you can’t say it all in 1-3 short paragraphs, be sure to break up the look of your message with bullets and one-line paragraphs.

Like this.

That keeps the reader flowing through your work quicker than when met with a sea of black print.

Let me also suggest that you craft your messages and then let them sit for an hour or a day. Revisit them with the mindset of a magazine editor who is charged with cutting the fat from your article. I think you’ll be surprised as to how much you can trim without compromising your message.

In fact, my next post will be a rewrite of this article intended for an email message!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

While my kids can type text messages faster than I can write articles, I just don’t “get” text messaging. Now, I’ll admit, it might be because I like to TALK even more than I like to write, but I’d really rather hear my friends’ voices than imagine their inflection on a 2″ screen.

But I’m definitely in the minority these days. And it seems that those dregs of society - spammers - are devising more ways to interrupt your day (and communications) with their garbage.

Cell Phone Spam

Even though I don’t text, I found a recent article from the New York Times interesting. It seems some of the heat is off of email spam, while the bad guys turn their attention to spamming your cellphone.

If you think email spam is bad, cellphone spam is even worse.

• You can’t delete it without opening it.
• You have to pay for it. (Keep in mind, the spammers pay nothing to send it to you.)
• There’s no way to stop it.

Until now.

This New York Times article shows you how to block cellphone spam with a number of cellphone companies. If you’re not bothered with this yet, you will be. So make note of what to do so you’ll be prepared.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse