The newest wave of email marketing statistics shows that email users are, in general, more receptive than ever to receiving permission-based commercial email, but are also more savvy and wary of being exploited.

New research shows that, in 2008, 84% of people enjoyed receiving email from a company when they registered for it, even if they didn’t read it right away. This is up from just 69% in 2005. People are now accustomed enough to commercial email, and therefore want to receive email they have asked for. Also, don’t get too upset if your initial open rate isn’t stellar, people like to open email on their own terms and may even wait until they get a couple of your messages before checking out your emails.

The caveat is that they absolutely do not want to receive email they didn’t ask for. In 2008, only 29% of people agreed that it would be okay to receive more email than they already do from a company, down from 43% in 2005.

No matter how big your list is, it will dwindle if you pester your subscribers with too much email or email that isn’t relevant. Make sure people know exactly what to expect when they subscribe, including how often they will be contacted and what type of content will be included. On your opt-in page, a screenshot showing how your email generally appears can make subscribers familiar with your messages before they even receive them. This will decrease opt-outs from people who don’t recognize your email.

“But how can I make every email relevant to the recipient?” you might be asking yourself, especially if you want to update the look of your email or offer new products or services. The answer here is personalization. 63% of people who receive emails from retail companies want that email to be personalized based on their internet activity and purchasing habits.

Personalization is easier than you think. The email marketing application you use most likely gives you all the tools you need to send mailings that include the recipient’s name, location, age, breakfast cereal preference, or anything else you might know about them. “But I don’t know what kind of breakfast cereal my recipients prefer,” you might be saying. Have you tried asking them? Your email marketing platform should also allow you to let your subscribers update their information in your list, answering whatever questions you want to ask. In Publicaster, you are able to control subscriber preferences in the administration tool.

Let me leave you with one more interesting finding. According to the newest statistics, 33% of people go to websites directly (i.e. typing or copy/pasting the url into their browser) rather than clicking through an email. Check for a spike in visits to your site, occurring just after your mailing.

The newest statistics show a maturing email industry, in which people want to get your company’s message, but they want it on their own terms. It would seem that email has entered it teenage years and, like moody teenagers, your recipients demand more personal attention while at the same time insisting that you respect their independence.

Let us know if you have any questions about email marketing best practices or how to make the most of your existing email marketing efforts. Leave a comment or give us a call at 1.866.216.BLUE (2583)!

Sources:
Beyond the Click: The Indirect Value of Email: Epsilon’s Email Branding Study. Epsilon Data Management, LLC. Click here to view the full report.

Confessions of an Online Shopper: An Inside Look at Email Marketing for the Retail Industry. Epsilon Data Management, LLC. Click here to view the full report.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about the growing importance of role accounts. To recap, role accounts are abuse@ and postmaster@ email accounts that people would typically use to speak with someone who is deemed to be authoritative for a domain. To find out why it is extremely important to have role accounts set up, how people use them, and how to make the most of them once they are set up, click here.

Marketing through email can be rewarding, but there are many elements of an email campaign to think about and plan for if you want the best results. One of the most important elements of an email campaign is making sure you get through to your subscribers and give them what they want. This will help build a strong relationship with your subscribers, whether you’re communicating with and helping your customers or providing useful resources to potential customers. In order to make this happen, you have to ask yourself a few questions: What data do I have in my database that can help me communicate with my subscribers on a more personal level? How do I build that data? Once I build that data, what can I use it for? If you are looking to take your emails to the next level and build further relationships with your subscribers, click here for three key things that can help you create a more successful, effective email campaign.

I have used email as a way to communicate to friends, family, colleagues, and clients for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until recently (when I started at Blue Sky Factory) that I realized just how important - I take that back - how imperative it is for businesses to take advantage of the many effective features and functions of email marketing. A vital part of making the most of your email marketing is standing out in the inbox, but the question is: How do you set your emails apart from everyone else’s?

This week I attended (and Blue Sky Factory sponsored) the North Carolina Governor’s Conference in Raleigh, and was invited to hear Dan Heath speak about his book, “Made to Stick”. Dan raised the question, “Why do some ideas stick while others fail?” This notion of making an idea or message stick lit a spark to my email marketing question. In conjunction, Heath described how to raise the bar and make your business, and your idea, standout among the rest. Heath said that sticky ideas are:

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Tell a Story

Relating Heath’s sticky ideas to email marketing, I realized that to grow and maintain subscribers – and ultimately have successful email campaigns - we have to make it stick to subscribers. Subscribers need an email to tell a story, be simple and unexpected, be concrete and credible, and if possible, appeal to their emotions. They need a sticky message - we want them to get psyched to receive your emails and in the end, this is just one more deliverability tool we all can harness.

To date, email marketing is the number one tool marketers use to render, promote, and distribute their brand message to their customers. At Blue Sky Factory we send out millions of emails each week for our clients, and each day I speak with potential clients that are eager to begin their email marketing campaign distributions. These clients are faced with the same questions: How do I make my email, my idea, and/or my message, stick? Does it start with content, the subject line, or even the from address, and which is more important?

Combine what your email service provider offers – and all of the tools at your disposal - with Heath’s “Made to Stick” philosophy and I believe you’ll see the results you want.

Great campaigns uphold the same principals that Heath established, which means that a good idea is just simply not enough, you have to make it stick.

I know this may seem like a lot, but let’s learn from an example I found this past weekend. Can you name the hotel that serves you incredibly warm, ooey, gooey, and very delicious chocolate chip cookies upon check-in? None other than The Double Tree Hotel, my friends. This incredibly simple idea was unexpected, concrete, elevated their credibility, appealed to your emotions, and told a story about how the Double Tree Hotel obviously cares about their customers - just through a cookie. This is a “Made to Stick” idea; the trick for marketers is to create a Double Tree Hotel cookie within their email marketing campaign. We can help you do that.

What have we learned today? Create your emails with a “Made to Stick” mentality, be the cookie, be fearless, and customize your email marketing campaigns by utilizing the many effective features and functions of email marketing. We’re always here to help answer your email marketing questions, so contact us with questions!

You know what they say about March - in like a lion and out like a lamb. Well here at the Factory we’re actually ramping up as the month goes on. It’s a busy month and we’re really excited for the variety of events at which we’re speaking, sponsoring, exhibiting, and attending! Here’s where we’ll be in March:

North Carolina Governor’s Conference on Tourism, March 1-3
Raleigh Convention Center and Raleigh Marriott City Center - Raleigh, NC
Blue Sky Factory is a silver sponsor of this event, and we’re exhibiting too. Stop by our booth and say hi to John Kirk and Nikki Schiavone!

Dallas Social Media Marketing Training, March 10
Dallas, TX
We’re a sponsor of this one-day training from one of the industry’s top social media experts, Giovanni Galluci.

SXSWi, March 12-17
Austin Convention Center - Austin, TX
We’ll be at the Interactive event, and will be hosting our own event on March 12. Stay tuned to Twitter for details on 3/12. Be sure to follow @gregcangialosi and @blueskyfactory so you don’t miss it!

MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Summit, March 15-17
InterContinental Hotel - Miami, FL
Blue Sky Factory is sponsoring Monday afternoon’s networking break. From 3 to 3:30 on 3/16, don’t miss the drinks and snacks on us!

Southeast Tourism Society Spring Meeting & SETTRA Symposium 2009, March 23-25
Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center - Montgomery, AL
Join us as we sponsor this event!

WACVB Tech Summit, March 26-27
Oakland Marriott City Center - Oakland, CA
Vice President John Kirk is speaking at the Western Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus’ event. Stay tuned for more information.

With the low cost and high returns of email marketing, sometimes it’s tempting to “set it and forget it” when it comes to sending emails. But, what if I told you that there is an easy way to get even more for your email marketing dollar?

Split Testing (sometimes called A/B Testing or Multivariate Testing) is an easy way to determine what works in campaigns. You can easily play with different variables to see how customers respond. This allows for easy improvement to email campaigns before they go out to your entire list, and allows you to get the most for your marketing buck. Your campaigns will be more meaningful to your subscribers, and this will be reflected in higher open, click-through, and conversion rates. Indeed, this kind of testing is a wonderful tool for marketers to have, it’s automated, and it’s a part of our new Publicaster 7 package.

Imagine what you can find out using Split Testing:
• Your test groups can yield up-to-date data on your customer’s interests and habits. This means that you can predict with a fair amount of accuracy what will be popular, and make sales projections based on group results.
• You can address different segments in different ways. For example, you might have a group of customers with a history of vacationing in spas, and another who is more interested in adventure vacations. In this case, highlighting one aspect of a resort (the spa amenities) for the first group and highlighting the adventure activities for the second would make sense.

What can you manipulate with Split Testing? As you’ll soon see, the question is more accurately framed “what can’t you manipulate with Split Testing?” These are just a few examples:
• Subject Lines: What is the most effective message? Should you include your company name? Use several different variations to find out.
• Content: What is your audience reading? Do they prefer a shorter email? What about the tone?
• Graphics: Which graphics are more effective – people or things?
• Layout: What information is your audience going for? What they feel is important might surprise you. Taking time to Split Test will enable you to respond to a pilot group’s reaction.
• Design: Beyond just layout, colors and fonts have an impact on how well your campaign will work. Use a few email designs with Split Testing to determine what will be effective.
• Calls to Action: What works best for your customers: “click here for more information” or “learn more?” Find out your own magic language!

Other elements like frequency, from fields, personalization, different landing pages, and even comparing all-together different emails can be manipulated. The limit is only your imagination, and with Publicaster 7, you have the tools, or toys, to play with!

Need help getting started with your A/B Split Testing? Click here.

Welcome to yet another edition of our new “Email Exclusives” segment where we share online marketing stories from our partners, clients, and other industry leaders. Up this week is Jarrod Walpert from Clever, Ink., a full-service marketing and copywriting boutique.

Name: Jarrod Walpert
Title: President
Organization: Clever, Ink.
Random Fact: Jarrod grew up as a competitive swimmer, making it to the Olympic trials while in high school. Growing up in Baltimore, he trained in one of the same pools that Michael Phelps trained in several years later!

What role does email play for Clever, Ink’s/your clients’ marketing activities?
As a boutique marketing agency, we spend every day developing and executing strategic marketing tactics designed to connect our clients’ brands with their core consumers. With more and more marketing budgets being slashed, and a critical importance being placed on targeting and tracking the marketing function, email marketing is a tool we utilize for each and every one of our clients - with amazing return. One recent example is an email campaign we deployed for a retailer that promoted an in-store event. Included in the creative was a call-to-action offer that enjoyed substantial redemption – more than $25,000 in sales from one email campaign that cost a few hundred dollars to design and deploy. What can provide a more solid marketing opportunity than a viable list of opt-in customers who have said, “yes, keep us connected to your brand”?

Does your organization utilize social media tools? If so, in what ways?
Absolutely - we suggest social media to our clients, and we “practice what we preach”. Currently we host a blog, The Blotter: smart thINKing, focused on sharing clever ideas as they relate to brand marketing and what we call “smart thINKing”. In addition, we are active on Twitter, and of course, our team has profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn. As we learn more and more about the connectivity and power of social media, we are integrating each of these tools into the way we do business. In fact, we’re in the process of re-skinning and migrating our blog to the WordPress.org platform to bring RSS feed capabilities, one-click access to all of our online profiles, and better trackability into one aggregated environment. Beyond online services, we have also worked in the podcasting arena, both scripting podcasts as well as placing our clients as guests on high profile podcasts such as the New York Times’ “Tech Talk”.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve found in the social media world?
As with anything in life - time. Finding the time to stay up-to-date and relevant is both a commitment and a requirement these days. We tackle this challenge by considering Clever, Ink. to be “a client”. We make sure we’re taking the time we need to post relevant content to build our brand on and off-line.

Do you have any advice for marketers looking to optimize their email marketing or looking to enter the world of social media?
One word – immersion. Like learning a foreign language, the best way to learn social media is to immerse yourself. When we first heard about Twitter our initial reaction was “why?!” I couldn’t fathom taking one more moment out of my day to let someone know what I was doing in 140 characters or less. But, after attending a workshop on social media and being bombarded with Twitter this and Twitter that, I went back to my office and signed up. Within 24 hours, I was addicted. Not only have my Twitter postings brought traffic to Clever, Ink’s blog, I’m also learning a ton about social media simply by following tweets that are relevant to what we do at Clever, Ink. everyday.

We have been working hard at the Factory, and are very excited to announce the latest (and 7th) release of our email marketing application Publicaster. This version of Publicaster includes a major overhaul to the user interface as well as many other significant changes to key features. Here are just a few features you’ll love:

• Automated A/B Testing. Allows users to test emails based on subject line, creative design, or other email elements, ultimately improving campaign performance. Upgraded to one interface, this feature is now streamlined with less manual work for the user.

• Expanded Performance Tracking. View performance based on a mailing list, distribution, or campaign series.

• New Auto-Responder Workflow & Triggered Events. Offers new, advanced auto-responder capabilities, along with a streamlined email triggering process for easier set-up.

• New Set of API/Webservices. Enables complete integration with third party applications.

• Quick Access to Multiple Accounts. Move quickly between accounts through a central account selection box that is visible in all sections of the application.

For more information on Publicaster 7, click here.

Blue Sky Factory account managers will be contacting clients with their migration date this week. If you have any questions in the meantime, contact your account manager or email bsfsupport@blueskyfactory.com.

If you’d like a free demo please contact bsfinfo@blueskyfactory.com.

The Blue Sky Factory team has been excited about this release since we started our beta testing last fall, and the hard work has finally paid off. We are all very proud of our team for this major accomplishment. From our incredible technology & design team who put in the long hard hours of coding, to our support & account management teams who listened to our customers’ feedback and provided insight, to our sales and marketing teams who kept on the pulse of the front lines to ensure our next release would continue to be a top player in the ESP space, and to our dedicated customer base who helped us with the “stress testing,” a BIG THANK YOU to you all.

As a result of your coordinated efforts, our latest release is much more user friendly and includes many new features that will help marketers optimize their campaigns.

Our account managers are here to ensure you make the most of these new features, so don’t be shy about asking questions. We’re here to help.

Congratulations to the BSF team and great work!

Facebook might have started as a photo sharing website for college students, but it has definitely expanded into much more. Not only are college students using Facebook, but also high school students, baby boomers, business people, and the list goes on and on. With over 50 million people on Facebook, organizations and brands are also starting to see its benefits as a marketing tool. Blue Sky Factory has a fan page where we keep our fans up-to-date with event information, videos, and photos, and our blog posts are updated directly on our fan page as well. If you’re interested in establishing a company or brand presence on Facebook, here are some of the things that will help you get started with a fan page:

• Add Photos. Update your Facebook fan page automatically with your Flickr account. Take pictures of special events or show off your employees. This will help create a more personal connection with your Facebook friends.
• Upload Videos. It’s easy to upload videos directly to your page. You can give it a title, write a description, and post it within seconds.
• Include Blog Posts. Add your blog’s RSS feed to the fan page, and it automatically updates when you post your blog. By doing this, your fans are also able to subscribe to your blog via Facebook.
• Promote Events. You can set up an event page that is designed to create awareness around or promote an upcoming event. This allows you to invite people, provide them with more information, or even send them a reminder. Whether you’re promoting an industry happy hour or user conference, Facebook allows for easy event marketing.
• Share Industry and Company News. “The Wall” allows you to post messages that your fans can see. Information you find beneficial to share should be posted on your wall. We let fans know about upcoming webinars and industry events as well as recent company news. Facebook gives you the option to send an update to fans, but choose wisely. Just like with your email marketing, you don’t want to overload fans with too many updates.
• Start Discussions. Facebook fan pages include a discussion board. Start a discussion amongst your fans. Engaging them will help build a lasting relationship!

Once you have your fan page set up, you will need to create awareness of your new page and start building your fan base! Your fan base will become a new community - and a complementary effort to your email marketing activities - to promote products, build relationships, engage in discussions, and even promote your email newsletters or other email communications.

If you’re not on Facebook yet, click here to set up an account. You’ll need to start with a basic profile page. If you’re already on Facebook, but are a bit overwhelmed on setting up a fan page, click here for basic steps on how to do so. If you have any questions when setting this up, feel free to contact us.

Email has been - and continues to be - the backbone of all online marketing, while social media and the mobile landscape continue to emerge as top tools for today’s marketers. These mediums are cost effective, informative, and have the potential to reach millions of people.

Join Blue Sky Factory as we navigate through the convergence of email, mobile, and social media - 3 core mediums that are currently on the hearts and minds of marketers everywhere - and discuss how marketers can leverage these tools to drive new sales and increase brand awareness.

Taking place Wednesday, March 11 from 1:00 to 2:00 PM, CEO Greg Cangialosi will be presenting “The Intersection of Email, Mobile & Social Media”.

Click here to register. Hope to see you there!