E-marketing

But not every recipient is looking for Christmas presents. And not every sender gets a seasonal response boost in Q4. So... Don't forget other holidays and cultures

Now it's time for them to pick out email tactics and strategies suited to the last stages of the holiday season (and beyond).

the opportunity, the challenge, frequency, offers, testing, segmentation, summary. whitepaper on e-mail marketing

As email users, we expect and value emails that are timely, meaningful and relevant from people that we know and trust. Anything that doesn't meet this criteria is considered SPAM. Your goal is to create "Love Opportunities" where recipients WANT to open, click and buy from you.

Despite the convenience of shopping online, many people still use the web only to research products to purchase offline. Multi-channel retailers with both physical stores and online stores have a leg up on pure-plays when it comes to serving and converting these buyers. Circuit City is an example of a retailer that's in tune with what customers want and expect from the cross-channel experience, offering customer service features that leverage its competitive advantage:

From the "Research that Makes Spammers Giddy" department, Jordan McCollum over at Marketing Pilgrim points to an interesting new study from Ball State University's Center for Media Design and ExactTarget. The study, Messaging Behaviors, Preferences, and Personas looked at how different groups of people interact with media and which sales channels work best to reach them.

Savvy online retailers can attract thrifty customers this holiday season with a sound comparison shopping strategy, but those merchants must be careful not to create a lot of extra work, damage their reputation, or waste money.

A wise entrepreneur once said that "you can't build a reputation on what you're going to do." While computers weren't around when Henry Ford coined the phrase, his words still resonate today. With billions of people online-and probably the same number of bloggers and social media participants-it's imperative to take a pro-active approach to your company's reputation management. Don't wait until there's a problem-that's too little, too late.

The Internet Marketer's Handbook was compiled by Danny Dover and is the result of literally hundreds of hours of study and practice in internet marketing and search engine optimization techniques. The information below represents the web's best resources and tools. All of the items listed below are available to the general public and most are free of charge. Enjoy!

This is for the advanced only, not a company that is still trying to answer "what or why". To gauge the sophistication of your organization, see this chart. Deploying this strategy without grasping the foundations of social media, the cultural changes it implies or testing trial programs will likely lead to failure.

You're an individual who is responsible for the long term direction of a website, and meets the requirements of business, community, and technology. Part of your role is to keep your website profitable, even if it doesn't generate direct revenue streams.

Traditional Web Marketing needs to evolve, and this post intends to kick start the next generation.

This document catalogs the many tools and tactics available for corporate web strategy in 2008. Even if your strategy or resource limitations restrict you from entering all spaces, awareness of the changes in our digital landscape are critical. This document is intended for decision makers roles such as CMO/VP/Director of Web and Marketing.

With 60% of online shoppers cite free shipping as a reason they are more likely to shop on the web (Harris Interactive, July 2008), if you use free shipping as a marketing vehicle, you want to make sure you communicate your offer at every touch point. In the current issue of eM+C magazine, you'll find my article Get Your Site Into Shipping Shape This Season with ideas on how "get the most mileage" out of your free shipping offer from search engine to shopping cart (this version includes screen shots):

The Internet makes copying photographs, artwork, and words easy, since a relatively unsophisticated user can just browse the web saving or copying nearly anything that suits his fancy. As an e-business owner you'll want to both protect your photographs and, conversely, ensure that your employees are not taking protected work of others. After all, a copyright violation could cost thousands of dollars in legal fees, time, forced subscription fees, and potential fines. U.S. copyright protection extends to all forms of "expression" including software, written papers, charts, digital files, music, video, and presentations. This protection begins the moment a work is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression," and copyrights are federally enforced. Generally, ideas, short phrases, facts, slogans, and useful articles are not copyright protected, but most everything else is.

Findable. Scannable. Readable. Concise. Layered. We know much these days about how to make Web content usable-thanks to experts such as Robert Horn, Jakob Nielsen, Ginny Redish, and Gerry McGovern. What we don't understand as well, however, is how to make content win users over to take the actions we want them to take or have the perceptions we want them to have. We don't understand how to make Web content both usable and persuasive. I, by no means, intend to imply that we should sacrifice the usability of content to make it more persuasive. Truly winning content must be both.

I've been a big fan of Crutchfield's marketing for a long time - I consider them to be one of the top retailers in that regard. Here's a perfect example of why: Crutchfield recently ran this email incorporating ratings and reviews (an effective and underused tactic for retail email), and includes content that speaks to various buying modes effectively.

One of the many retail emails I subscribe to is Rampage, which recently notified its mailing list of a new brand called Golden State (separate e-store).

Sender lines are important - perhaps even more important than subject lines - for better open rates in email marketing campaigns. The reputation of the sender (based on recognition of a brand/name and past experience with a sender's messages) determines whether the email recipient will even read and consider the subject line.