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Email continues to be the "Great Organizer" for users
According to a new survey published by Merkle, 71% of online consumers spent 20 minutes or more weekly exchanging email with friends and family in 2009, the same level recorded in the previous year.
With plenty of speculation that social networking sites were going to trample email out of the picture, some of the numbers in the report are truly powerful examples of how important email communication is in the average online user’s day-to-day. In fact, with the increased usage of Mobile Email and with most users linking their social networking updates to their personal emails—social networking is actually “breeding” a new brand of “Hyper Email Checkers”!
Here are some other great findings from the study:
– Nearly two-thirds (63%) of social networking consumers use the same email account for their social networking alerts and messages as they do for the majority of their permission, or opt-in email.
– Over 42% of social networking consumers are “hyper email checkers”– those who check their personal email account at least four times daily –compared with 27% of those not socially networked.
– 48% of social networking consumers spend 45+ minutes weekly with personal email, compared with 40% of those not socially networked.
and Mobile users with internet on their phone are even more likely to check their emails constantly:
– 50% of mobile email consumers are “hyper email checkers” too–compared with 32% of traditional email users.
FYI – Data was collected through Merkle’s annual “View from the Inbox” study, an online survey of 3,281 US adults age 18+ conducted during fall 2009.
Image was adapted from an original image by: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A poem for My Love on Valentine’s Day:
Shall I compare thee to a great email list-growth strategy?
You bet!
The two of you “art” fairly similar, I must say.
Our love and my list both started out small, like the darling buds of May.
Then over time, as our love organically grew,
So did my lists-in quality and quantity too!
Like a good little prospect, I subscribed to your love,
And just like the email capture on my website, it fit like a glove.
So on the horizon, what do I see?
Well, more chances to grow us all social-ly,
We can take dance classes, or have dinner with friends,
While my lists will use Twitter as a means to an ends.
Remember my love, thy eternal beauty doth brightly gleam.
And like my list growth strategies, the ROI on your love is Supreme.
Ok, so maybe you’d get backhanded if you actually delivered this sonnet to your True Love this Valentine’s Day– but after you read ”Why Growing Great Lists is just like Growing Great Love” you might actually agree that the two share some pretty stark similarities. Could it be that growing any good relationship–whether it’s two people “feeling sparks fly” for the first time or a web visitor signing up for a newsletter for the first time-always begins with a few simple steps?
Rule #1 Let it happen naturally:
Love and lists both grow best naturally: sure, you never meant to meet Mr./Mrs. Right at the deli counter but it happened far more naturally than your failed attempts to pick up your soulmate with pick up lines like, “Excuse me, but I happened to have lost my phone number, can I borrow yours?”. Provide the ambience and the correct ingredients whether it’s a physical setting or your internet presence and let it happen naturally.
Rule #2 Define the relationship. Get permission:
Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to be honest, whether it’s a kiss or an email address. Be straightforward, let them know what to expect and leave “an (opt) out” in case they’re not interested. And before you “make the first move” make sure you’ve got their approval (opt-in)!
Growing Great Lists is just like Growing Great Love – Top 5 Rules for Both
Rule #1 Let it happen naturally:
Love and lists both grow best naturally: sure, you never meant to meet Mr./Mrs. Right at the deli counter but it happened far more naturally than your failed attempts to pick up your soulmate with pick up lines like, “Excuse me, but I happened to have lost my phone number, can I borrow yours?”. Provide the ambience and the correct ingredients whether it’s a physical setting or your internet presence and let it happen naturally.
Rule #2 Define the relationship. Get permission:
Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to be honest, whether it’s a kiss or an email address. Be straightforward, let them know what to expect and leave “an (opt) out” in case they’re not interested. And before you “make the first move” make sure you’ve got their approval (opt-in)!
– Read The Rest of the Article Here –
OR – Find out more about List Engage on our Fan Page or Follow us on Twitter!
Imagine it’s December 31, 2010…
Has your business done better than you had hoped? Worse? Held steady for the last 11 months or so? Have you achieved everything that you wanted to? Do you even have the right tools to measure your successes tangibly?
Whether you’re just getting started with an e-marketing plan in 2010, or you’re well on your way to launching the next viral marketing campaign on YouTube– well, there are still several things every business should keep sight of from Jan. 1 to Dec 31 every year! And if you “keep your eye on the prize”, measure, and follow the 10 easy steps we offer below, it’ll be quite easy to look back on Dec. 31, 2010 and be 100% Regret Free!
If you’re looking for measurable returns on your e-marketing in 2010 (and beyond!) then keep reading, as we unfold the:
Top 10 e-marketing Tips for a Regret-Free 2010
Listen: Get in the conversation with customers, prospects, and competitors, and actually incorporate their ideas.
Define your social media goals: and get moving! Or pretty soon the social media train will have left the station!
Stay on top of your Data: 27 – 30% of your list goes bad every year. It’s your most important resource so stay on top of it. If your data is bad nothing else really matters.
1) Listen: Get in the conversation with customers, prospects, and competitors, and actually incorporate their ideas.
2) Define your social media goals: and get moving! Or pretty soon the social media train will have left the station!
3) Stay on top of your Data: 27 – 30% of your list goes bad every year. It’s your most important resource so stay on top of it. If your data is bad nothing else really matters.
With 2009 about to draw to an end, we here at List Engage just wanted to take a moment to congratulate our clients, friends, and fellow businesses on growing and thriving through the unprecedented economic climate of 2009– and to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2010!
With businesses looking to expand their eMarketing and social media budgets in 2010 — on everything from email marketing design and services to developing niche followers on Twitter — List Engage has something to offer any business, big or small. Why not make one of your resolutions to join us on the cutting edge of eMarketing success in 2010!
2009 has been a dark year for marketing budgets. As the economy tanked, so did every big company’s dreams of plastering market campaigns across every medium available.
Fortunately for e-marketers, email and social media marketing budgets defied the odds, and most actually grew in ‘09.
Take a look at the Marketing Sherpa chart, to see the average email marketing budget decreases versus increases across 8 financial sectors.
To read the entire article, go here.
It turns out, that when consumers want to share something they’ve found online with their friends or family– like an article link, or a video– an overwhelming amount of people still use email as their primary form of sharing. According to the latest survey from Marketing Sherpa, while social media is gaining some ground, the latter still dominates as a sharing tool.
In email’s defense, there are plenty of reasons to use it over social networking sites: privacy, certainty of delivery, no length restrictions… to name a few. In the words of Marketing Sherpa, “When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.”
So, while we may find a Facebook status update good for conveying a one-liner, or Twitter for “tweeting” our location it’s a lot less likely that social media will replace email for getting in touch with Nana, keeping updated on your bank’s latest policies, or interacting with potential clients.
To read the complete Marketing Sherpa study, click here.
As List Engage rolls out the new ShareThis feature for all of our email marketing clients, the social networking world just got a whole lot closer. Now, with the click of a button you can instantly connect your emails to your social networks– and simultaneouly sync all that time, money, and effort you’ve invested in your email campaigns into your social networking efforts as well! And with the 2010 media buying budget looking to have email marketing and social media neck-in-neck on ad spending– now’s the time to make your marketing dollars work overtime.
To learn more, specifically about ShareThis and our other Social Forward features, click here.
A new study has looked in detail at how the 100 most valuable brands in the US work with 11 different social media channels and has discovered a correlation between social media use and financial performance.
When the researchers sorted the brands into groups with similar profiles, the ’social media mavens’ (those with the most social media breadth and depth) on average grew 18% in revenues over the last year. The least engaged companies saw an average decline in revenue of 6% over the same period.
The report’s author, Charlene Li, is quick to point out that “We are not claiming a causal relationship — but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example”, she continues, “a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engaged with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on customers than the competition.”
The study found that companies that scored well generally have dedicated teams, however small, active in the social media channels they utilise, and that the most successful teams evangelise social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders. These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational. This differs from the approach of traditional communications and early corporate blog experimentation, says the report, which emphasises messaging and talking points.
…
(Excerpt taken from Internet Retailing. To read more: follow this link for the entire article on the link between social media use and firms’ profits)
Recently, Seattle based outdoor clothing retailer Filson came to ListEngage with a challenge—create an email marketing campaign that reached their valued customer’s inboxes with a time sensitive offer and in turn help them increase their campaign performance and sales. They wanted to see positive results, and ListEngage delivered!
By following best practices in email design and rendering, smart list segmenting techniques and moving away from an all-image based email to a combination of images and text seen above the fold ListEngage was able to achieve a much higher success rate than average email marketing campaigns. The campaign generated much better open and click-through rates and even reported “higher than expected sales” – the ultimate dream for any online retailer and what every e-marketing company should strive for when helping clients with their online marketing efforts.
To learn more about Filson, or to sign up for their exclusive offers and events click here.
To learn more about ListEngage and our “Don’t Go It Alone” philosophy or to sign-up for our newsletter click here.
When creating and designing emails, it is often difficult to determine what makes for the “best” note to be viewed in several different email clients: While Gmail and Yahoo may render the email perfectly, Outlook might align images left or perhaps display the font type incorrectly. Meanwhile, while you’re viewing your *perfect* newsletter in Internet Explorer with a big smile on your face, it might be rendering completely backwards in Firefox!
Although you never know for certain until you click send (or you make this your vocation, like us!), there are some “tried and true” practice for email design and rendering which will certainly help eliminate some of the guesswork and “aftermath” headaches of email marketing– and we’ve outlined the Top Ten in our most recent newsletter..
Take a look for the Top 5 Best Rendering and Design Tips, or dowload the Whitepaper here.
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