The 2009 Top Online Retailers research study by Silverpop, indicates that online retailers are increasing email marketing activity to attract customers. Besides increasing frequency of emails, online retailers are using several tactics to improve and expand their email marketing campaigns:

• 96% of the Top 500 and 91% of the other online retailers now have email marketing programs compared to 94% and 83% respectively in 2008.
• 96% of the Top 500 and 92% of the other online retailers have the email opt-in sign-up area prominently displayed on the home page of their website.
• Many online retailers offer a reward such as discount coupons or entry in a drawing for a large prize, for joining the email list.
• Fewer companies (28% of Top 500, 14% of others) offer opt-in choices for subscribers compared to 2008 (56% and 26% respectively). This is surprising since most research indicates that customers prefer opt-in subscriptions options and may be less likely to completely unsubscribe if they can adjust their subscription options.
• 27% of the Top 500 and 37% of the other online retailers send 1 to 4 emails, and 27% and 21% respectively send 5 to 10 emails in a 30 day period. Too many emails is the second most frequent reason after relevance for unsubscribing.
• Surprisingly only 4% of the Top 500 have personalized subject lines. Various studies show that personalized emails do increase open rates.
• An increasing number of online retailers offer more compelling reasons to buy such as discounts or sale pricing in their email campaigns.
• 72% of online retailers still offer no preference options or alternatives when subscribers click to unsubscribe.

Email marketing is a highly effective and low-cost means to reach consumers. For many retailers email marketing is generating as much revenue as traditional marketing channels such as catalogs, postcards, newspaper inserts, etc. However, many retailers are using email in the same manner they use traditional marketing channels and not taking the opportunity to engage with customers online.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• If your business does online retail, this study offers some interesting insights for reviewing your approach relative to what leaders are doing.
• Although online retailers have made significant gains and improvements in the past year, there is still much more to gain and improve in email marketing for many businesses.
• Remember that consumers are in control – design your email marketing programs to align with your prospective buyer preferences.
• More frequent email is usually not the answer to improve performance – look at subscriber opt-in options, personalized emails and other means to be more effective and less intrusive.
• Watch the unsubscribing trends after every email mailing to identify possible areas for improving subscriber retention.
• Explore ways to engage with buyers and customers online using social media tools in conjunction with email marketing.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

We all have opinions about what constitutes spam email, our frustrations with receiving it and how we go about trying to avoid it. Using email marketing continues to be one of the most effective ways for reaching buyers. While consumers generally feel that email marketing is less intrusive than tactics such as telemarketing and in-person sales calls, there is increasing annoyance with the overall volume of email and unwanted types of email.

According to a research study conducted by Epsilon that surveyed over 4,000 consumer respondents in select countries in North America, Asia Pacific and Europe; the following percentage of consumers in this survey considered the following types of email as spam (in descending order):

• Try to trick me into opening it (74%)
• Offensive subject matter (68%)
• Any emails I did not ask for or subscribe to (62%)
• Senders who are unknown to me (61%)
• Emails automatically filtered into the junk mailbox (43%)
• Any email I don’t want, regardless of whether I subscribed (37%)
• Email sent from a sender not in my address book or approved sender list (34%)
• Email from a company I may have given permission to send me mail at one time, but that I no longer wish to receive (34%)
• From companies with an offline relationship, but never gave permission to contact me via email (32%)
• From companies I have done business with but send too frequently (27%)
• Email that tries to sell me a product or service, even if I know the sender (24%)

(percentage is average across all countries surveyed)

Consumers generally use tactics such as unsubscribing, junk mail folder, reporting spam, blocking senders and spam filtering to limit what they perceive as spam. There is also a growing number of consumers who use “special” or fake email addresses when they provide personal information or make a purchase.

The following are the top 5 reasons consumers gave for unsubscribing to email in this survey:

• Irrelevant content
• Receive too frequently
• Suspect email address being shared/sold
• Don’t recall signing up
• Privacy concerns

How to use this information to benefit your business

• Regardless of what you consider as spam email, it’s important to be cognizant of what your subscribers think is spam.
• Use a professional email marketing service to deliver your marketing emails. These services provide continually updated guidance on best practices and check each email for probability of triggering spam filters. See this Email Marketing article for more information.
• Ensure that you observe regulatory / legal requirements such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the USA and rules in other countries for sending emails.
• People subscribe to your email list based on a specific offer and promise you make – stay true to that offer and promise.
• Make it easy for subscribers to change their subscription preferences or unsubscribe to avoid being submitted to spammer lists.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce its six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found its way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses
Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation
Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – how hard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at “standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”, “info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”

Web Spiders
Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting
ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea
It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail).

This article written by Tom Kulzer, CEO of AWeber Communications.

Once you decide to use Email Marketing you will need a professional email marketing service. Do not attempt to do email marketing from your desktop or web email account – it won’t work and will cause you many problems with delivery, spam origination and ugly emails arriving at you customers and prospects. You must subscribe to a professional email marketing service or if your company has the technical capabilities, install your own system. Professional email marketing services provide you with email list management, subscribe/unsubscribe permission management, email templates, campaign management, statistical reporting to analyze and improve the effectiveness of your email marketing, professional support and much more.

Some web hosting companies provide basic email marketing services for list management and bulk email sending – don’t bother, most of these services are totally inadequate for real businesses. There are hundreds of professional email marketing service providers, several dozen of which receive favorable reviews from experts and customers. Just enter ‘email marketing services comparison’ in your favorite search engine to find a vendor that suits your needs. I use AWeber and I’m very satisfied with their capabilities, services, delivery, support and competitive pricing.
Disclosure: this website is an affiliate of some of the companies mentioned in this article and may be paid commissions for sales referred by this website.
Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

Email Marketing is the electronic version of direct marketing for sending advertising materials to customer and prospects via email rather than the traditional physical postal mail. In broad terms, anything you send via email to customers or prospects to influence them to buy something from you can be considered Email Marketing. Typical common uses of Email Marketing are:

• Sending promotional materials to customers or prospects.
• Sending newsletters or other informational updates to promote loyalty with customers and prospects.
• Inviting customers or prospects to an event such as a seminar, webinar, conference, etc.
• Placing advertisements or marketing messages in Emails sent by someone else.

However, unlike sending something in the physical postal mail to address lists you can buy, Email Marketing is permission-based. You must have permission from the person who owns the email address to send them any marketing emails. If you don’t, your email can be considered spam and you could have your website shut down, reputation ruined and be in violation of the law in some countries. Be sure to familiarize yourself with regulatory requirements in the countries you plan to do email marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the USA.

How can I use Email Marketing to market my business?
Email marketing is a very effective way to reach your customers and prospects. Many businesses in every industry and market have proven that it works. And it works really well if done correctly. Email marketing is very flexible allowing you to send different types of materials with tailored messages to targeted groups of people. And it’s cheap – you can reach someone for a fraction of a penny. You need to craft professional materials with good content and messages to be effective. Think about how you could accelerate your business if you were able to reach all your customers and prospects with specific offers based on who they are, every week or every month. That’s powerful and that’s what Email Marketing can do, if you do it right.
View more information about Email Marketing.
Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

We’ve all experienced it – some dumb spam email shows up in your inbox and you wonder “where did this bozo get my email address?”. Email address harvesting is a major activity for spammers, scammers and other miscreants on the Internet. They send out electronic web crawlers or spambots that crawl websites, forums, search engines, newsgroups, blogs and every type of Internet property searching for email addresses. They generally search for the @ character and take the characters on either side of it as an email address, and you’re on their email list. These spammers share, buy and sell lists – once they’ve got you, there’s not much you can do other than have your spam filter remove these emails. Don’t try to unsubscribe from these lowlifes – you’re only confirming that it’s a live email address for them to keep using.

As you develop your online presence for Internet Marketing, there are many necessary requirements and opportunities to disclose your email address. The most common occurrence is putting your email address on your website or blog for people to contact you. Yes, you want people who are really interested in contacting you to be able to do so, but you’re also inviting spammers and others to harvest and abuse your email address. Here are 3 ways to enable people to contact you from your website while protecting your email address:

1. Use a Contact Form – see the Contact page on this website as an example. I get the information from the form in my email inbox, but the address is not disclosed.
2. Use JavaScript to decompose your email address – this code:
   Send an <script language="javascript"> var name = "yourname"; var dname = "yourdomain"; document.write ("<a href=\"mailto:" + name + "&#64;" + dname + ".com\"> Email</a>"); </script> with questions, comments or suggestions about this website.
   will produce this on your website without disclosing your email address:
   Send an Email with questions, comments or suggestions about this website.
   Just replace “yourname” and “yourdomain” in the above JavaScript code with your email information.  If your domain is not .com, then change that in the code too.
3. Use an email address obfuscator – there are various ways of doing this, the most common being substituting normal characters with HTML special characters so that yourname@yourdomain.com becomes:
   &#121;&#111;&#117;&#114;&#110;&#97;&#109;&#101;&#64;&#121;&#111;&#117;&#114;&#100;&#111;&#109;&#97;&#105;&#110;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;
   It will still appear as yourname@yourdomain.com in a browser, but the spambot only sees that string of obfuscated characters.
   Click here for a free online email HTML obfuscation service. But be careful which obfuscation service you use – some of them are fronts for spammers to capture your email address.

There are a bunch of paid email address protection services – I’m not convinced they do much more than the above approaches which you can do for free. If you have access to a professional web developer for your website, they may have more sophisticated methods to secure your email address.

The next most common occurrence is using your email address as a user name for a forum or website registration. Rather use an obscure username and only disclose your email address in the appropriate area if required.

Disclaimer: no method is completely foolproof or guarantees 100% protection, but taking some precaution is so much better than just letting the spammers and scammers have their way with your email address.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• You want to do business and marketing online and not be bothered with increasing volumes of spam and other abuse.
• Protecting your email address is relatively simple and keeps these miscreants of the Internet away from you and your business.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

Basically it says who you are and where you’re from, but it also conveys a lot more than many people realize. Do you use a good email address for your business communication? Too many businesses don’t. This is about the use of email addresses within a business context.

When someone receives an email from you, there is inferred information conveyed about you in your email address. It’s easier illustrated with examples – what would you think if you received a business email from hot-one@google.com or fast-eddie@yourcompanyname.com?

The first example may be someone’s personal email address they’re using for business purposes. If that’s what you want to convey in your personal life, that’s your choice. However, for business purposes this has 2 problems – the user name ‘hot-one’ does not convey a professional image (unless that’s the nature of your business) and using a generic service provider like google.com does not indicate that you actually have a real business.

The second example uses a good business domain of yourcompanyname.com, but do you really want to be known to your customers and business associates as ‘fast-eddie’? There is obvious lack of professionalism in that choice.

I am regularly astonished by seeing businesses with reasonable www.yourcompanyname.com web domain presence, using email addresses from generic service providers such as google.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. Even more dumbfounding are businesses that provide internet and web services using generic service provider email addresses to market their services. All web hosting services provide email services with domain hosting – it’s part of what you already pay for if you have a business website. You can get a basic web domain and email service for as little as $5 a month from a choice of thousands of providers. My rule of thumb – I don’t do business with anyone who doesn’t have their own business domain and a professional email address.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• Don’t use your personal email address for business.
• Always use your business domain name for your business emails – e.g. yourcompanyname.com
• Use a professional email name that identifies you – e.g. john@yourcompanyname.com, or john.doe@yourcompanyname.com, or jdoe@yourcompanyname.com, etc. Keep it simple and resist being clever or cute.
• If it’s a functional area in your business you could use a functional email name – e.g. info@yourcompanyname.com, service@yourcompanyname.com, etc.
• But don’t choose something impersonal such as ceo@yourcompanyname.com, or president@yourcompanyname.com, etc.
• Don’t do business with anyone who doesn’t follow these rules. That means others won’t do business with you if you don’t follow these rules either.

Note: These comments do not apply to the email addresses used by professional email marketing service providers for newsletters or blog feeds.
Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com