By Anne Holland, PresidentIf you want to improve email campaign conversions -- at least incrementally -- the answer may lie in your customer service department. Here's why:Every time you send an email broadcast, instead of clicking on hotlinks or order buttons, some percent of recipients will click on "reply to" and send you back a message. What percent? Sherpa Reader Don Hoyt at Deerfield.com (who admittedly is in the business of helping companies handle these replies) says his own house mailings get 20% replies for big offers and 5% for non-offer messages, such as informational newsletters. That sounds a little high to me, but it probably varies a lot based on the quality of your list, your marketplace and your...

By Anne Holland, PresidentAs I reported in a recent column, 3,637 Marketers Reveal Which Email Tests Worked Best, MarketingSherpa research into 3,637 real-life marketers' tests showed landing page copy tests were the big ROI winner.On the one hand, this didn't surprise us because landing page tests have ranked as the highest impact tests in other online media for years. In fact, a December 2006 MarketingSherpa study of the world's heaviest online advertisers revealed that 56% had budgeted significantly for landing page A/B tests in 2007. However, let's face it -- when you think about email tests, traditionally you think about stuff like subject lines, copy and offer, and text versus HTML. It's not that the old tests don't work --...

ContactJonah BloomEditorAdvertising Age711 Third Ave.New York, NY 10017-4036 Phone: 212-210-0281Email: jbloom(at)crain(dot)comCirculationPaid print subscribers: 280,000 readersTotal weekly audience: 712,000+ advertising, marketing and media prosAudienceAd Age has three main types of readers:- Marketers, such as Coca-Cola, Nike and McDonald's- Agencies (advertising, media, direct, PR) that service those marketers in their efforts to connect with consumers- Media owners or licensees who aggregate audiences and enable those marketers to deliver their messages to consumers Why you would want to be featured on AdAge.com- 52% of site users are in advertising and marketing management- 80% visit the site once a week or more- In March 2006 (the last audited month), the site received almost 2.5 million visitors- In the third quarter of 2006, the site...

Late last summer, MarketingSherpa published a series of articles on how marketers should consider revamping their email designs to comply with preview pane use and image blocking (see link below).The problem was that while we knew roughly 69% of at-work email users usually view emails in their preview panes, no one had any hard data on consumers. So, consumer marketers weren't sure if they should redesign for preview and image blocking or keep doing business as usual. This January, we partnered with Survey Sampling International to solve this problem. Here are the fascinating results of our new research:(Note: As always, please do not break our copyright by copying these charts. You may, however, hotlink to this article.)Chart #1. Percent of...

Incorporating blogs was a tricky and potentially expensive proposition for LexisNexis, says Jonathan Hoy, Strategic Alliance Manager. First, he would have to strike licensing deals with blog publishers and then his technical team would have to write a conversion program that translated and indexed each publisher's data feed.But given rising consumer interest in blogs and the need to stay ahead of competitors, Hoy knew they had to find a solution. “We asked ourselves, ‘What's the cost of not doing this?' ”They solved the problem through a partnership with a company that operates an aggregated, indexed blog feed service (see hotlink below). With a single feed now populating LexisNexis' database, subscribers can search traditional news sites and more than 350 blogs....

CHALLENGE Founded in 2000, Arbor Networks wasn't the smallest enterprise security software firm on the block … but they weren't the most famous either. It's a horribly competitive field with hundreds of vendors and solution providers jostling for prospects' attention. As Director Global Marketing Communications, Lisa Quinby had to make Arbor Networks a well-known brand name among execs and techies at organizations around the world with 1,000 or more staff. In addition to that tall order, she naturally had to generate a steady flow of qualified sales leads. That's how one cold December morning in 2005, Quinby found herself sitting at a conference table with her entire marketing team -- including agencies and vendors -- trying to brainstorm a way...

CHALLENGE"Our brand has been around for a quarter of a century, but we had surprisingly low awareness," says Michelle Peterman, VP Marketing, Kettle Foods. "Because our company has been so focused on distribution, resources to support awareness-building have been fairly constrained."The potato chip maker hadn't done much emarketing except for a basic Web site, and upper management wasn't sold on the notion that the medium could translate into retail sales. In 2004, Peterman got what might be called a "yellow light" to do a multifaceted Web campaign. Now, she needed a plan.While sorting through bags of fan mail filled with haikus, art projects and touching stories, she ran across several requests for a new chip flavor. That's when the epiphany...

Komen for the Cure has perfected the art of cause marketing. The national nonprofit dedicated to wiping out breast cancer counts roughly 130 corporate partners in the effort, with deals that range from a donation of 10 cents for every Lean Cuisine meal bought by consumers to $1 dollar for every mile driven by specially decorated BMWs during a nationwide test-drive promotion. Last year, Komen collected $36 million from their cause-marketing partnerships while helping promote breast cancer awareness. That's 11% of their total revenue. “It's important to have not only a good mix of products, but also a mix of opportunities to engage the public,” says Katrina Drake, Director, Cause Marketing.Unable to ignore the proliferation of pink ribbons alongside some...

By Anne Holland, PresidentJust before last Valentine's Day, marketers at Idea Art, an ecommerce site run by a small family owned printing firm in the South, sent an email blast to their list of 72,000 opt-ins. The offer: beautifully designed papers with which one could create homemade valentines.Results were OK. But only just OK. Everyone blamed holiday email clutter. How could they expect a fabulous response rate with so many competing offers hitting recipients' inboxes?Most marketers would have heaved a sigh and moved on to their next campaign. But, the Idea Art team were too stubborn. Valentine's Day is one of their biggest holidays. They were determined to make email work harder.So, they whipped out a follow-up email before Feb...

CHALLENGE “When I first started [running] our marketing in 2002, we only had about 10 names total,” said Jeff Paradise, Director IT, Marketing and Corporate Sales, Paradise Pens. “Email marketing wasn't really an area that had taken on a big importance.” Paradise instantly recognized that they could grow their email list organically with their 23 outlets in malls nationwide, so he and his team came up with incentives for brick-and-mortar store employees and customers to kick-start the process.But then something bad happened. They received word that complaints to at least one ISP had risen above acceptable levels and they risked being blacklisted. Of course, Paradise wanted to fix the entire program fast.CAMPAIGNTo begin the list-building process, Paradise and his marketing...