eMarketing Association Conference Wrap Up

I spent the last 2 days at the eMarketing Association's eM7 conference in Atlanta, minutes from our Midtown office.

This was my second eMA conference and I found this one more engaging and energetic than the previous one in San Francisco where I also presented. The attendance was great, a wide range of companies were represented (big brands and not so big) and folks had come from all over the country (not to mention Europe) so I felt honored to be a part of the panel on the first day and as a speaker on day 2.

Some highlights and thoughts (note- I was not able to witness all sessions because of some client/work related items that had to be addressed):

- Bert DuMars of Atlanta based Newell Rubbermaid kicked things off and discussed their ebusiness approach for many of their brands (including Sharpies, Graco but not Post It Notes). I find it always interesting to hear how companies handle their online efforts when they don't directly sell their goods and services.

-Maureen Schumacher, who runs Google's Atlanta office, and Kathy Daly Jennings , also of Google, gave a very insightful talk on how some of their clients are using Google beyond Ad Words to drive targeted traffic. The gracious Google folks also hosted the reception later that evening.

- Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop, always has interesting things to say about relationship marketing and he covered some great points on making the online relationship more fruitful for marketers. He also provided 5 actionable items to test out that the attendees furiously took notes on.

-Bill and I represented email marketers on a panel that featured some great digital pros including Atlanta based agency heads, Jeff Hilimire and Joe Schab. As expected, the questions were heavy on social marketing networks and Web 2.0 items. As Bill Nussey mentions on his latest blog post, "Email is the Original Social Networking App." Not that the press picks up on that but I digress.

One poor attendee from a major brand asked how he could get his email numbers up as his boss is intent on raising Click Throughs for their email efforts. Not a bad ambition but one of the things I spoke about during my presentation, Utilizing Metrics to Enhance your Email Budget and Performance, was the ability to place them in the proper context. After all who cares about a great CT rate if your campaign goals were not furthered. I was pleased with my presentation and the crowd asked some great questions. If you care to see a copy of the presentation, please let me know.

The highlight for me on day 2 was the keynote on Coke's MyRewards program from Carol Kruse and Kristine Elliot. I was amazed to hear that they have 124 segments of their newsletter. There were lots of great insights on the challenges and successes they have had in using this program to build and capture data while delivering a meaningful loyalty program.

All in all, a great 2 day event!

Email Chemistry 101

David Baker has a thoughtful piece on The Chemistry Of An Email Team. This is a rarely evaluated element of a successful email program. Of course, the people make or break anything in the business world. With staffing and budgeting issues a major issue in the email world, this deserves more attention.

It will vary based on your company's size and structure but this is a good case to build for more resources in 2008. For some data to take into battle, see my iMedia piece Email economics: what to do in a recession that ran yesterday.

An additional resource on a day in the life of an email marketing manager (usually the The Moderator or Idealist as described in Baker's article) is from a column I wrote previously that features insights from real life email marketing managers.

What are some other "roles" that could be added to this view of a typical email team?

Constant Contact IPO a Roaring Success

In a positive step forward for the technology capital markets, small business email software provider, Constant Contact (CTCT), saw its IPO on Wed. Oct. 3 jump to a 79% gain on its first day of trading.

Constant Contact shares closed at $27.64. The company, based in Waltham, Mass., raised $93.3 million in the offering, selling 5.8 million shares at $16 apiece, surpassing the $12 to $14 expected range of the stock. Constant Contact has 27 million outstanding shares, giving it a market capitalization of more than $800 million.

This surely opens the door for some other ESPs to move closer to their own IPOs. Who is next will be interesting fodder for the email industry as well as a big step in moving email more into the mainstream business and finance world.

Some stories on the IPO:

Constant Contact’s I.P.O. May Bode Well For Tech Offerings

Constant Contact shares soar in debut

You can also read about some highlights from their filing in my earlier post.

Those Presidential Candidates Sure Like Email - But Are They Any Good At It?

Email is certainly not seen as a political luxury item anymore and most politicians have made copious use of the reach of this tool in recent months.

Several articles break down how email is working for the Presidential candidates.

You, Bill Clinton and a bowl of chips

Campaigns get creative in dash for cash

Thanks to Ken Magill and Mark Brownlow for picking these items up.

For the curious and poly sci majors, take a look back at my iMediaConnection piece on the 2004 Presidential email face-off.

Email Marketing and the 2004 Election

An excerpt...

"I feel comfortable saying that Bush’s camp has a very slight advantage over Kerry in terms of email strategy and execution."

So maybe email is a strong indicator of the electoral process and results. Will it foreshadow the winner again in 08?

Stay tuned.

Top 21 email marketing information sources...Revisited

Most email marketers know (or should) Mark Brownlow and his EmailMarketingReports.com (and blog) as the most straightforward, relevant and neutral source of email marketing news, opinions and thought leadership (both from Mark and the many sources he pulls from).

So I was honored to be among his Top 21 email marketing information sources when it first was released.

I am still honored to be part of it (he did take a few folks off and added some as well) and it is well worth checking out for some diverse thoughts on the never dull email marketing industry. I have signed up for most of the RSS feeds from this talented crew and recommend you checking them out as well.