Complex International Spam Laws

BrightWave Marketing just assisted a client with sorting through the new China CAN-SPAM like law. It is very vague and has some key points that are unclear on how they should be interpreted. Neverless, I don't think anyone wants the China government tracking them down.

This is a good example on why companies need to partner with strong and experienced Email Marketing services firms - not just for deployment and campaign management, but in a key strategic advisory services role.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

More research - search engine marketing stats

360i's new study states marketers should look more holistically at campaigns, and not necessarily assume that the final search term is the one that gets the sales. Search users rely on brand search terms late in the buying cycle, marketers end up giving all the credit to such terms that tend to be the last click before a sale.

The highest conversion rates are from searchers using brand terms at the beginning and end of their searches - 9.3 percent - but searches that begin with a non-brand term and end with a brand term have only a slightly lower conversion rate of 8.73 percent, according to the study.

The study is worth a look as it tracks the click path from initial click to conversion, spanning more than 3.9 million users, and 5.1 million clicks during the first quarter of 2006.

Email Marketing Open and Click Through Metrics Increase

An interesting study was released today from the folks at eROI. Not only do email marketing stats seem to be improving but actual email marketers seem to be doing a better job in creating enticing subject lines, compelling content and testing different delivery days.

Some finds also relate to different days of the week , which is always entertaining (if not useless).

Some highlights...

In the first quarter of 2006, the best email open and click rates were on weekends.

Open and click rates increased significantly in the first quarter (40 percent and 60 percent increases, respectively), compared with rates for Q4 2005, when open and click rates decreased 29 percent and 21 percent, respectively, from the previous quarter.

Lists with more than 25,000 recipients, sending is much more sporadic when compared to smaller list sizes. This shows that larger mailers are not necessarily segmenting further, but are instead experimenting with the time and day of sending.

Wake-Up Call for Legit Email Marketers

Internet Marketers Settle FTC Charges
This should be the wake-up call for many of the non spammer email marketers who fail to comply with CAN-SPAM. With the FTC going after "name brands" like Kodak it can be inferred that the FTC will charge companies that are not just guilty of providing typical spam. Here some major companies failed to include unsubscribe links or mailed to recipients that unsubscribed previously. They were also guilty of not including a physical address which is just lazy.

Read the FTC release here and hopefully learn to play by the rules, if you are not already.

Email Marketing Webcast

The folks at ON24 (www.http://on24.com/) were nice enough to invite me to lead a webcast on Email Marketing.

Register here - its free and should be an informative hour.


Anyone using email marketing to communicate with their customer and prospects can tell you creating a successful and engaging message is much harder than it seems. There are so many fundamental issues to consider HTML or text? What day and time to send, should the subject line be specific or vague - the list goes on and on). However, one of the most essential parts of creating your email message often gets overlooked - the length of your emails.

This webcast will cover both big picture strategic insight and tactical tips on addressing issues related to the length of email and answer the question should the content be concise and direct or longer filled with information?

Simms Jenkins, Founder and Principal of BrightWave Marketing, a leading Email Marketing and Customer Relationship Services firm, discusses how keeping your emails succinct and your message on target increases revenue.

This webcast will include
Real case studies with actual results you can use
Best practices for email messaging
Messaging tactics to enhance email marketing revenue
Time for your own questions and comments
Don't miss this opportunity from an Email Marketing expert on how to optimize and monetize your email messages.

http://www.on24.com/on24webinars/2006_05_30_invite-lv.html

Celebrity Endorsements - Ty's Stock Goes Up

We all know marketeres love to have a famous pitchmen hawk their goods or be associated with their services. This NY Times article is shocking for a different reason. Ty Pennington, of ABC's Home Makeover series, had the highest purchase influence of 86 celebrity endorsements featured in ads last year, according to NPD Group.

Looks like he won't be a flash in the pan. Pretty impressive career ladder he is now climbing.