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Cool Marketing Resource - ExactTarget Seminar

ExactTarget's Route 1 to 1: The New eMarketing Essentials is heading your way!  More info >>

In addition to informative presentations, top industry experts and analysts will provide one-to-one marketing technology insight, and ExactTarget clients will share real-life examples of B2B and B2C email marketing success.

WinCommunications will be there in Chicago in May.  Look for the latest tips here at WinBlogger soon after the May seminar, and be sure to call 1-866-win-mail if you are interested in learning more about how to incorporate ExactTarget's tool into your marketing plan.

Cool Marketing Resource - Clickz Conference

Q: Who reads email and why?

A: From "Beyond Direct: E-mail Branding & Relationships to Build Business," at the Clickz Email Marketing Conference come these facts:

• 81 percent of U.S. executives subscribe to industry e-mail newsletters for product information and business intelligence (Wall Street Journal).
• 60 percent of business decision makers said Internet and email are the best ways for advertisers to reach them (Jupiter Research).

Read more statistics reported at the conference in this Clickz article: http://www.clickz.com/3627305/print

Cool Marketing Resource - WDFM.com

I like lists.  They are:

1. Easy to follow
2. Organized
3. Succinct

The email newsletter by Larry Chase called "Web Digest for Marketers" organizes information in a numbered list which is consistent and familiar every time it is published.  The lists are always topic-specific, so I know right away if I am going to want to browse the list or not.

One thing I don't like is how I have to skip past the large advertisement that pops into my preview pane in order to get to the content of the newsletter.  This is an unfortunate misunderstanding of priorities.  I also think it would be helpful to have a table of contents and some back-and-forth navigation.

Still, the information is terrific and I appreciate the lists he sends out on topics like "Top 12 Advance Email Marketing Resources" and "How to Get Email Newsletter Subscribers." 

See more at www.wdfm.com .

Cool Marketing Resource - SendOutCards.com

A perfect complement to a targeted permission-based email campaign is an occasional direct mail communication. 

I have discovered SendOutCards.com.  This online tool creates personal and personalized greeting cards, then the company has your cards stuffed, stamped and delivered within 7 business days. 

What is nice is not only do they have huge collection of greeting cards to select from, they also allow you to create cards from pictures on your desktop.

When email campaigns integrate with a variety marketing tools like this one, the results improve. 

"If effectively used, these campaings increase response rates, market awareness and revenue, and maximize profits." - Integrated Marketing Campaigns 101, OnDemandJournal.com

Cool Marketing Resource - EmailStatCenter.com

The relatively new resource EmailStatCenter.com boasts to be "The Leading Authority on Email Marketing Metrics."  The statistics are collected from a variety of sources and sorted by topics, such as "Authentication," "From Lines" or "Trend Reports."  All statics are attributed.

For example, at the category labeled "Creative" are these statistics, among others:

• Most common screen resoltion is 1024 X 768. - OneStat.com (April 2007)
• Fewer than 50 percent of marketers create emails that render appropriately.
  - Email Experience Council, Jan 2007

Cool Resource - EEC White Paper Room

The Email Experience Council does it again. 

In just over a year, this virtual group of professional email marketers has put together an original collection of research and reports specific to our field and intended to improve the quality of email marketing around the globe.

Recently, the new "White Paper Room" appeared with downloadable reports on issues such as:

• "The State of Email Matrics and Bounceback Management"
• "HTML or Text: Practical Advice on Campaign Formatting"
• "Send to a Friend Benchmark Study"

The issues at the core of the EEC are:

1. Deliverability and Rendering
2. Email User Experience
3. Creative that Works
4. List Growth and Engagement

For more on the EEC, go to www.emailexperience.org !

Cool Resource - BestEzines.com

More and more permission-based marketing professionals are joining forces.  There are some truly top-notch resources out there, blogs, web sites, newseltters, RSS feeds - it is now a matter of sorting out all the information. 

And there are web sites that do that, too.

One such collection is BestEzines.com where you'll find a collection of titles listed by category.  These permission-based email newsletters have been reviewed, and are constantly being reviewed by visitors to the web site.  It's peer review, just like back in creative writing class! 

Look for our newsletter the WinM@il Business Builder under Internet Business. 

Cool Marketing Resource - Email Benchmarks

Every reputable Email Service Provider collects data on their delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, and so on. 

Recently I reveiwed a collection of data provided by MailerMailer.com.  This graphic depiction of email benchmarks gives one vendor's experience with their customers' email marekting campaigns.

Notable is their data on which days worked best during the second half of 2005 as well as the first half of 2006.  In the document "Email Marketing Metrics Report," one graph shows that email open and click-through rates actually dip on Wednesday and Thursday.

This question of the best day to deliver will always depend on your audience and your message.  But in a very general way, it might be worth considering Monday afternoon and Tuesday as having better odds, according to this one report.

And during the second half of the year, this could change...

Cool Marketing Resources - A Collection

Thank you to the Digital Arts Group for hosting our session on email marketing!  As promised, here is the list of resources I mentioned:

Articles and Industry News

• Marketing Sherpa
  http://www.marketingsherpa.com
• Clickz
  http://www.clickz.com
• Emarketer
  http://www.emarketer.com

Technical Assistance

• W3C Markup Validation Service
  http://validator.w3.org/

Content and Creative

• The Campaign Monitor Email Newsletter Design Gallery
  http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/
  email_newsletter_design/
• Best Blogs for 2005
  http://marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2968
  MarketingSherpa
• The Web Style Guide
  http://www.webstyleguide.com

Guidelines

• The Basics of Email Marketing for Nonprofits
  http://www.convio.com/site/PageServer?pagename=rc_emarketing
  Convio
• Email Marketing Best Practices Blog
  http://emailmarketing.typepad.com/bestpractices/
• Top 10 Trends for the Next 10 Years
  http://wdfm.com/toptenmarketingtips.htm

Cool Marketing Resource - Blogpulse

Search for the blog topic of your choice, it's easy.  For example, check out Blogwise or Blogpulse, two easy to use blog search tools.  Google will work too, but the blog engines contain all kinds of other info specific to blogs.