As we prepare to relaunch our Five Questions series with some top names and performers in email marketing today, I want you to come along with me for a few minutes into the Way Back Machine to February 2008 for what was to be the kickoff for the series. Needless to say, there has been some retooling since then.

I did an email interview with Zane Lamprey, the host of a great TV show called Three Sheets. In short, it’s about Zane’s trips around the world drinking. While the show has shifted cable networks a few times, he has a presence on Hulu, just wrapped a big comedy tour and is also an author. So yeah, he’s still staying busy while also doing a job many would love to have.

So to get you prepped for the rebirth of Five Questions, here’s my 2008 chat with Zane Lamprey, complete with the original intro. Vintage! And yes, we do talk about email. Enjoy! Continue reading

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

I wanted to give you a quick update here with some screen shots of the new interface, currently in beta!

We’re excited and can’t wait to roll this out to you all, but here’s some candy for you in the meantime. Stay tuned as we will announce beta location for our customers and partners to access and provide feedback.

Screen shot and highlights below… Continue reading

Brett Houle is Co-Founder/CEO of SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him up at Twitter: @heybrett and @sendlabs.

I’ve been an AT&T customer for years now and randomly get marketing messages from them, often asking me to add an extra line of service when my single guy lifestyle would seem to dictate otherwise.

However, I need to call them out as apparently my email address is being passed around like the bill at a very expensive dinner among people that dislike each other. How do I know this? Read on.

Spoiler alert: I live in Manchester, NH. However, check out the snapshots of three emails I have received this week. Note the address:

So my secret double (triple?) life is revealed as I have residency in Michigan and Indiana, in addition to New Hampshire. Sorry to lie to everyone for so long.

Seriously though, not only did I get the same email three times, it’s geo-targeting me in areas I don’t live. Worst yet, I never did get one for where I do live!

What’s up, AT&T?

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

In case you couldn’t tell, Team SendLabs is a bit passionate when it comes to email marketing. It’s just the way we’re wired and in this life, if you don’t have passion for what you’re doing, you’re done.

So when I read the “news” last week that Ben & Jerry’s was essentially forgoing their email marketing program in favor of social media, I got a bit passionate about why this was a mistake.

Call it new baby envy, but every time I hear someone down what we do and say email is dead, it drives me crazy. Social media and email marketing can co-exist, not exist solely on their own without interaction from the other.

In scanning the Twitterverse today, I came across this post from The Email Guide, some good chaps that used a picture we recently took for one of their newsletters. They did what I and others should have done and simply asked Ben & Jerry’s why they were dropping email marketing.

Here’s what they found out:

- This only affected the UK. The email messaging was still the same as they are dropping their monthly newsletters for those customers. The email was to alert them of the change. Still, why drop email altogether? I don’t get this.

- The U.S. and non-UK programs are still going to be in place.

You can read the rest of the post to see the full response, but they took the whole thing in stride and said it was a misunderstanding. I’m curious why they weren’t a bit more proactive when groups like ours and Hubspot brought light to the situation (an email, maybe?), but regardless, we jumped the cow and we’re sorry for getting so upset.

I still stand by the principles in my original post which can be applied to the next major brand that considers dropping email in favor of  an all social media approach. Someone else is going to be bold and completely cut the cord, but again, not everyone uses social media and even those that do might not use it in the manner that is prime for marketers.

We’ll promise to do better the next time. To say we’re sorry, here are two links so everyone’s a winner:

• The signup for Ben & Jerry’s email list. Nothing says you care like putting in your information. Let’s show them that people do value their email marketing efforts, eh?
• Their Scoop Shop locator so you can find where to enjoy some quality ice cream during the hot summer (or cold winter) months.

Time for a field trip….

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

Here’s the scenario: you’ve been utilizing email as a channel to market and promote your business for the last six months.  Your results for the first quarter have been tremendous.  Customers are redeeming exclusive coupon offers because they receive AND read your email on a frequent basis.  You couldn’t be happier!

Then suddenly you realize that you’re seeing the same faces all the time.  The question hits you: “How can I grow my email marketing list?”

Congratulations – you’re just like every other business that uses the email channel for marketing.  You have a desire for new prospective customers.  The challenge is how do you find them without spending a boat load of cash, right?  Email marketing.  End of story.

Give a Little to Get a Lot

Six months ago, one of our best clients that is a community banking institution in Western Indiana, approached us and wanted to grow their email database.  Our idea was simple, easy and has proven to be extremely effective.  Think about it.  Banks deal with people’s money, which in turn endears these people to the bank.  Our client has a very loyal customer base, as do many community banks.

The idea was simple…with a slight twist.  Give current email subscribers an opportunity to enter for a chance to win FREE CASH just for forwarding the bank’s email to their friends.  Seems simple enough, right?  Email marketing software has the capability to track which subscribers forward email to their friends, as well as how many times subscribers forwarded the email.

But hold the phone.  Here’s comes the twist.

In order to be eligible to win the prize, the subscriber’s friends have to sign up to make both parties (the subscriber and their friends) eligible to win the contest.  So, in order to be eligible for a chance to win the contest, the subscriber has to forward the email to their friends AND the subscriber’s friends have to sign up to receive email from the bank.

The campaign we developed centered on the biggest holiday of the year:  Christmas.  The incentive was a chance to win $100 a week over a 4 week period just for forwarding a weekly email to friends.  The catch was that the subscriber’s friends had to read the email, click on the “Sign Up” link in the email, and then signup for email from the bank.  The success was awesome, to say the least.  Over the course of 4 weeks, the bank’s email database increased 20% for nothing more than a middle of the road laptop computer.

The Beat Goes On

Because of the success the bank experienced with this campaign, they’ve decided to continue using this list building technique FOREVER.  They recently sent a marketing insert inside their customers’ statements encouraging current customers to sign up for the bank’s email marketing campaigns.  The carrot:  Don’t miss an opportunity for a chance to win FREE CASH just for being a member of our email marketing program.  Check out a larger version of the insert the bank sent.

The lesson to learn is simple.  Don’t be afraid to give something away to grow your email marketing database.  You never know when that next email address might be a potential customer who can significantly increase your business’ bottom line!

Chris Stone is the Founder of Rock Solid Media LLC, an interactive marketing company nestled in the Heart of Ohio between Cleveland and Columbus, and works with clients of all sizes to develop & deploy multiple strategies for successful internet marketing. Give them a follow @rocksolidmedia.

This again?

That was the first thought I had when reading that ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s had decided to “drop” their email marketing program in favor of going nearly 100% social media, aka the media-fueled nemesis of email marketing.

I’m going to preface this post by explaining the following thoughts are completely skewed toward the email marketing side of the discussion. In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s kinda the business I’m in.

But as someone that was in traditional marketing for the better part of seven years before coming over to SendLabs, there are some fundamentals I feel that Ben & Jerry’s are completely ignoring.

Email and Social Media can get along. Believe it.

Note I said ‘media-fueled nemesis’ above. That’s because the mentality that social media is somehow going to end email marketing is fueled by this online faction that is hell-bent on hoping they can say “I told you so” if it was ever to happen.

By the way, this is the same group that is saying B & J is “dropping” their email. They are actually reducing down to a yearly email, not eliminating completely. “Drop” sounds sexier and helps push the agenda more, I guess.

As good SendLabs friend and email marketing vet Luke Newton said to me once on the topic of the death of email, “You can’t sign up for any social media network without having a valid email address.”  The inbox and use of email isn’t going away. It’s just not. So if the main mechanism and landing place for this communication medium is going to be around for a while, why would email marketing die?

Having said that (Larry David fans anyone?), the email marketing industry loves social media. LOVES IT! Our company uses Twitter every day and also maintains a Facebook page. Our competitors, comparators, friends, critics, etc. all do the same thing. Why does there need to be one or the other? In an age of the end of traditional media and advertising, it’s about a new marketing mix that includes it all.

Which brings me to why the Ben & Jerry’s approach is lazy.

Not everyone is using social media

Gasp! Eek! Passing Out!

I’ve been blessed with a great group of friends and colleagues that I interact with constantly via phone, text, email and social media. I’m 32 years old, but am friends with those of all ages. What I’ve noticed – shocking to some, I’m sure – is that while Facebook is still hot among my friends, Twitter is still not. I’d say less than 10% of my friends have Twitter accounts and less than that can be considered active.

Are you still with me? Did I pop your social media bubble?

The vast minority of people I know just aren’t engaged with Twitter, nor have any reason they want to be. Even on Facebook, they like connecting with people but are a bit wary of the marketing element. They range from VPs of credit unions to lawyers to IT to everything in between. The two things they all have though?

An email address. An inbox.

The Big Ben & Jerry’s Flavored Blunder

According to the articles I’ve read, B & J’s marketing team surveyed their users and based on those results, it was determined their users would rather engage with social media instead. I’ve never been subscribed to their list(s), but clearly they weren’t using email to effectively communicate or add any value to their recipients.

At last check, I can’t target a specific group of my users on Twitter or Facebook within a zip code and send them a message. I can’t say ‘Send this only to people who say they like X flavor or Y flavor’. Instead as a B & J social user, I’m subjected to all of it. What if there’s a store opening up down the street from me? Am I supposed to know through chance or just hope it remains in my feed until I see it?

But with email marketing, I can send a message to specific opt-in users (provided I have the data) about new stores opening up in their area without bothering everyone else. If users indicated they just want to hear about charitable causes, I can send them just charitable emails. See what I’m getting at? With social, you blast everyone with the same messaging, there’s no filter and you have to hope it stays on their feed for long enough for the user to see it.

At last check, the company had three Twitter feeds. Does a user have to follow all three to be engaged? Isn’t that a bit much?

I can send an email to someone right now and it’s right there in the place they use the most: the inbox. If I’ve done things the right way, the recipient will welcome the email and not view it as an interruption. This leads me to the final takeaway here.

The Lazy Comment

It’s clear that Ben & Jerry’s simply took the easy way out. They didn’t want to invest any effort or time into email marketing to begin with and thus saw it as an expense, rather than an asset. With Facebook or Twitter, they have to simply paste a link or write 140 characters and “interact”.

Meanwhile, they have very light metrics on who is viewing their messaging, when they are viewing it and if their message is moving the meter or not. They have no targeting available to them, but if looking at numbers of followers, fans and likes is all they need to judge how things are going, more power to them.

By abandoning their email marketing program, they’ve said to those people who have just an email address or don’t want to engage via social media that they are not worth their time and effort. That’s a sad statement and one that is very short-sighted in today’s marketing world.

By using email and social media together, marketers have more power than ever before to target, interact and convert users into full-blown customers and loyalists. Abandoning one or the other sure feels like a bowl of ice cream left outside on a hot summer day to me.

But maybe I’m melted in my thinking. What do you think? Comment below and let’s discuss.

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

I can still remember my first data related task back when I worked as Director of Marketing for a pro hockey team. The goal was to combine all of our scattered data into one nice, accessible, easy to use playpen. Sound easy? Not so much.

We had two old clunker databases, Excel docs all over the place and worse, no fully-encompassing set of standards for everything. We had to plan, architect, formalize and then enter in all of the data into one spot, drinking shots of Jack all along the way. It was nightmarish at times, but after a year’s worth of work, we got everything cleaned, imported and ready to go for the future.

The lesson here is data is king. The more information you have within a few keystrokes, the more effectively you can succeed at targeting your prospects and ultimately get them to take an action based on an email campaign.

A question I get asked frequently is about our email marketing software integrating with various CRMs (customer relation management databases). The great news is that in most cases, using our API, you can sync both your CRM and your SendLabs databases.

What are the benefits?

The main – and most obvious – reason and benefit to integration is that data can be updated in both places at once, meaning there’s no extra steps in between that could cause data loss or inconsistencies. If an email address of a customer gets updated in one spot, it gets updated in the other. The days of a middle person needing to do both are over.

Integration also allows marketing to talk with sales through the CRM. This means your salespeople can see all the vital information (opens, clicks, etc.) related to email campaigns without adding an additional login to their daily routine. Knowledge (and data) is power…give them the power of Grayskull through simple integration.

In the case of Salesforce, you can pull lists from the popular CRM into SendLabs and get the opens/clicks information sent back. This is how we roll with the big SF.

So how would you get started?

• Talk with the people that oversee your database and understand the technical specifications.
• Reach out to us (or your current ESP) with that information to see if the two databases can play nice. There are some CRMs we don’t integrate with due to age, specs, etc.
• You can get the ball rolling now by checking our (eventually) award-winning API for implementation. Honestly, most techies are off and running within the day they view this but you can reach out to us if you have questions.

Save time, help your salespeople sell your product with even more information and eliminate data loss/errors – all just by integrating your CRM with your email services provider.

What are you waiting for?

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

This is one of my favorite emails I have received in my inbox recently. Kristian Andersen + Associates is a multi-disciplinary brand and experience design consultancy, helping companies define, articulate and execute brand strategies and user experiences.

I came across them a while back when doing some competitive research as they use Exact Target and had done some interface design work for them. When I stumbled upon them, I was really struck by the talent of their UI design team. So guess what? I signed up for their newsletter.

Agency Email Newsletter

This was the first issue I received from them. Frankly, I think I subscribed ages ago and almost forgot who they were when I got it. And honestly, if the email wasn’t designed so well, I may have unsubbed or deleted it immediately. (Sending frequency, hint hint.)

It’s funny to me that advertising, marketing and interactive agencies don’t use email more often. It’s right at their fingertips and it pushes a nice summary of what’s happening in your agency in a quick one pager.

We’re all busy, and we can’t keep up with everything, but this is why I have said one phrase a million times which is also the reason I love being in this industry. The inbox rocks. If you’re in advertising, marketing or a digital shop, eat your own cooking. Please! It works and shows you’re capable of understanding and delivering across all channels.

The Review

So here is the email in all it’s glory and below are my specific critiques. To the crew at KA&A, this is the same type of audit we do for our own clients, so hopefully you’re down for some free constructive criticism. I think your email is in the top 5% of all the volume being pumped out globally every day.

1. Subject Line: “KA&A Update”. Simple enough. Sometimes I think it’s an easy trap to be too creative. In some ways, the idea of an update makes me curious. I almost have to look.

2. Header: Clean. Branded. Simple. I like how the typical pre-header stuff is in line with the logo in the header to the far right. No need to bump everything down to squish this up top. Wish there was something more than Forward-to-Friend though like a social share on Twitter, Facebook, etc. I know their ESP has social sharing. Forward-to-friend in my view now means through a number of different channels. Give subscribers the option to share it with their networks.

3. Main Headline: Where to begin? I liked this because it was big, bold and honest. It made me think that they’re a busy shop with a lot going on and that they’re going to try and give me the highlights. Subconsciously, I probably decided to vote in favor of reading on because of this. (I’m telling you inbox psychology exists. Over think it!)

4. Lead copy: Good stuff. Nice tone, not too braggatory. To the point and gracious. I like it.

5. Content: Announcing a new product is always cool, especially if you’re a modern agency. It’s not just about media buying or PR or slick graphics anymore for agencies. Building and marketing your own product tells marketers buying agency services that you get it. And you’re capable. Kudos. (I also like the look of this product by the way).

6. Beer: Need I say more? Mentioned twice.

7. We’re Reading. We’re Writing. We’re speaking: Love it. They could tweet this, but unless you’re glued to Twitter all day, you’re going to miss tweets in the quick paced stream. In the email, they summarized their favorite books, their recent posts and where they’re speaking. It shouts, “We’re an active agency and we’re capable.” Again.

I also liked the New Clients with the simple logos. Adds credibility. Simple.

8. Follow Us:Every business is made up of people. They give a nice shout out to their team and links to follow their staffers on Twitter. I am sure it builds morale and confidence around their studio too.

9. Ending: ‘A closer look at what we do’. I love this because it is at the end. A bit understated and tasteful. Now that i think about it, I might want to do business with them.

10. Footer: Can-Spam? Check. Preference Management? Check. Links to follow/subscribe and fan them? Check. Only thing I wish to see here, just like in the header, is a push to share socially.

Conclusion/Rating

Overall, this was a beaut. I dig the design, the layout, the copy and the thought put into it. I give it an A-. What would give it an A+? Social sharing.

Cheers KA&A! Great email!

Brett Houle is Co-Founder/CEO of SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him up at Twitter: @heybrett and @sendlabs.

Amidst Lebronamania the past few weeks, his decision to launch a Twitter account has been huge news around the social media world.

As of 11 am Wednesday, he had 227,357 followers but interestingly has yet to follow anyone back. No such thing as two-way communication when you’re the king, I guess.

My first thought was to check whether he used email marketing. If he’s truly desiring to be a worldwide icon, he’s got to use all the mediums, right? Surprisingly enough, he is.

What you see here is a shot from LebronJames.com and while the site is a bit light on content, what do we have here front and center? An email signup area! Imagine that!

I signed up and haven’t got any welcome email, so my assumption is they are simply collecting addresses and will probably push out their first email once James announces who he’s signing with Thursday. What’s even more interesting is that the social network icons at the top of the site are simply social share pushes, not links to his social media pages themselves.

(By the way, there’s an Email To Friend icon right next to the Facebook and Twitter icons. Just saying…)

So what do we learn from this? Even in an era of social media, email marketing is still fit for a King.

Josh Nason is the Inbound Marketing Director for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him at @joshnason and @sendlabs.

Sending an email isn’t as simple as just hitting ‘send’ and hoping it gets there. The business of email deliverability is one that all email marketing service providers have to be actively involved in and excel at 24/7.

I get questions all the time about deliverability, so I wanted to compile some of the most common to help you understand more of what happens “behind the curtain.”

If you have questions, send them to me (swheeler@sendlabs.com) and I’ll do my best to answer them in a future column.

Do Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block emails based upon content?

Yes, they do. For example, you put an ad in your email and the link that ad goes to has been associated with a spammer. You could be blocked for having it in your email. ISPs could mistake your email as spam if you use key phrases or words. Avoiding topics that are used consistently in spam as much as possible can help.

Avoid topics such as mortgage refinance, making money or medication. Never try to hide these words by using special characters. Every spammer has already tried this and it will only make your email look more like spam.

What are feedback loops and are they helpful?

We’ll use Yahoo’s feedback loop as the baseline here, but essentially when a user clicks the spam button, I get a feedback report for each complaint. This helps us understand what the issue(s) are and helps promote better sending, aka less complaints.

We are in several feedback loops, including Yahoo’s for some of our larger volume customers.

What factors make up your email reputation?

There are several factors that contribute:

• Sending infrastructure: Having authentication in place (domain keys, spf records, reverse dns) along with the most up-to-date technical standards and compliances is important.
• Bad/unknown email addresses: This goes hand-in-hand with list cleanliness as a whole. If you’re purchasing lists and adding users who didn’t sign up for your campaigns, you’re asking for complaints. In turn, that will hurt your reputation.
• Spam complaints: The more you get, the worse your reputation will be. Stay engaged and don’t betray your recipients’ trust.
• Length of time sending: The longer you have been sending from the same IP address, the better your reputation will be. If you’re a new sender, it will take a while for this “trust” to be built up but using best practices when you start will help.
• Consistent volumes: The higher the volume you send, the better. Consistency is really the key though. You can’t send once a year and expect to have a great reputation.

What is a honeypot?

A type of spam trap, honeypots are email addresses created by spam watchdog groups and blacklist compilers that are placed specifically in spots that only an email harvester will pick up via a link no person would ever find or stumble upon. A harvester finds the emails and then will add them to lists they are trying to sell.

Once the email gets sent to, that’s bad news for the sender. How else would they have got that address? The key: don’t buy lists. You’re just asking for trouble.

What questions do you have?

Email me at swheeler@sendlabs.com and your question could make a future post. If your current email marketing software provider isn’t passing these tests, it’s time to find one that does.

Steve Wheeler is the Director of Deliverability for SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe.