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From DIRECT and Multichannel Merchant Magazines | A Prism
Business Media Property |
May 16, 2006
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DearAOL.com:
Making ... Us ... Very ... Tired
By Ken Magill
Dear DearAOL.com: Please, give it a rest. You're making
sensible people's heads hurt.
Is it willful ignorance or stupidity that drives Goodmail's critics to
continue spouting nonsense?
Latest case in point: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Danny
O'Brien's anti-Goodmail post on DearAOL.com under the headline: "AOL
Starts the Shakedown."
Shakedown?
By Goodmail CEO Richard Gingras's account, the company is rejecting
close to 80% of companies applying for its CertifiedEmail program. AOL
and Goodmail are apparently extremely non-opportunistic shakedown
artists.
And O'Brien's headline is just the beginning. His post is riddled with
blatant falsehoods and intellectually dishonest arguments.
To read more, go to our Web
site.
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ADVERTISEMENT |
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This issue of Magilla Marketing is sponsored by Lyris
Technologies
It's all about trust.
Life's too short to worry about your email campaigns -- you need to
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Lyris Unveils ListManager 9.0
E-mail marketing software company Lyris Technologies is
expected today to unveil the latest version of its flagship product,
Lyris ListManager 9.0.
New features include some enhanced A/B split testing abilities,
including randomly generated test segments; concurrent sending of test
e-mail; and comparative reporting on such metrics as unsubscribes,
subscribes, opens, click-throughs and purchases.
ListManager 9.0 allows marketers to split test up to 10 versions of
their messages, according to Lyris.
The new software can also send e-mail up to 10 times faster than the
last version, the company said.
ListManager 9.0 also offers a new "engagement index," which the company
says uses data such as forwards, opens, click-throughs and transactions,
to assign each address a numeric value based on how engaged the receiver
is with the marketer's message.
According to Lyris, the engagement index is a way to spot list segments
worth some extra attention, such as prospects who may not have purchased
but who are clearly engaged with the brand and, as a result, should be
approached with a special offer.
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FTC Should Have Better Things to Do
By Ken Magill
From the pathetic-on-multiple-levels file comes news
that Kodak last week agreed to pay $26,331 to settle charges by the FTC
that it violated the federal Can-Spam Act.
Turns out Kodak's photo-sharing unit sent 2 million of its customers
e-mails that failed to contain an opt-out mechanism or instructions on
how to avoid getting e-mail from Kodak in the future.
A spokeswoman blamed the error on a technical glitch.
The entire e-mail marketing world has been waiting for months for the
FTC to issue some rules concerning the Can-Spam Act, such as --
marketers hope -- defining "sender" in such a way that multiple
advertisers in a single e-mail aren't all required to include their
postal addresses, and ensuring the 10-day opt-out provision isn't
shortened to the three days the FTC is reportedly considering.
And now we find out they've been spending their time on a simple
technical mistake by Kodak? This should have been settled with a phone
call.
On a separate note, the announcement sheds some embarrassing light on
Kodak's e-mail marketing. According to the FTC, the $26,331 settlement
represents "100% disgorgement of the gross proceeds from the offending
e-mail campaign."
Now let's see... $26,331 divided by 2 million ... That's 1.3 cents per
e-mail. Ouch. We know someone else who needs to find better ways to
spend their time, as well.
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ADVERTISEMENT |
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NYC: June 1-2
San Francisco:Oct.5-6
MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT presents
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savings code E17.
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AOL Subscribers Switching to Yahoo!: Return
Path
The vast majority of people who leave AOL and use
Return Path's e-mail change of address service switch to Yahoo! free
e-mail addresses, according to Return Path.
Of AOL's 1 million defectors last quarter who used Return Path's
change-of-address service, 42.5% went to Yahoo!, wrote Return Path CEO
Matt Blumberg in a recent post on his blog at onlyonce.blogs.com.
Blumberg warned that the data is skewed because of Return Path's data
sources, but that the service gets information from 1 million consumers
a quarter.
As for the rest of AOL's defectors, 23.5% switched their addresses to
one offered by a broadband provider, 19.5% switched to Hotmail, and 2.7%
switched to Gmail.
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Marketers Plan Questionable List-Growth Tactics:
Silverpop
Many e-mail marketers are planning to use list-growth
tactics that others said didn't work very well, according to a recent
survey by e-mail service provider Silverpop.
For example, 24% of those surveyed in Silverpop's 2006 Email List Growth
Survey said they are planning to use viral marketing to grow their
lists. However, just 10% said they had found viral marketing to be a
successful e-mail list-growth strategy, the company reported.
Also, 15% of those surveyed said they planned to append e-mail address
to their customer lists, but just 4% said the tactic paid off.
"It's generally wise to proceed cautiously with email appends, said
Elaine O'Gorman, vice president of strategy for Silverpop, in a
statement. "The quality of data sources varies considerably among
suppliers. A bad batch can put your brand in a very poor light."
Also, 18% of marketers surveyed said they plan to add cross promotions
to their e-mail programs, but just 10% who used the tactic said it was
very successful, according to Silverpop.
A good cross promotion involves products that are obviously
complementary, O'Gorman said.
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