Email continues to rock on as the killer app in online marketing, but it amazes me that most brands do not take the time to refine and improve their email marketing efforts. Many of us are far too quick to move on to the next new marketing tool without striving to flawlessly execute email marketing.

Forrester reported in a recent survey, that a mere seven percent of American consumers believe the emails they get pummeled with, are of any importance or relevance. With the ton of consumer data most brands have at their disposal, it’s a simple case of lazy marketing.

As the MarketingSherpa chart above shows, there are lots of ways to improve the success of your email marketing open and click-through rates by testing subject lines, offers or calls to action, send time or day of week, copy and layout, landing pages and from lines, hyperlink quantity, placement and more.

The kicker is you got to do it…you got to “bring it.”

As the chart points out, over 50% of the surveyed brands have yet to take advantage of these easy ways to improve their performance.

In addition, you need to “bucket” your email addresses into databases of similar behaviors and/or event-based activities such as:

• Life changes (e.g., new home buyer, new mother etc. )
• Brand activities and interactions (e.g., purchase or complaint etc.)
• Industry/environmental shifts (e.g., interest rate changes, price shifts etc.,)

Then, you move from this simple exercise to a “next best action” tactic whereby based on a customer’s previous interaction (e.g., purchase), your marketing follow-up message is related (e.g., promote service guarantee, insurance etc.,)

With any new effort, it’s wise to walk before you run with new activities you’re not accustomed to doing.

For example, one of our restaurant clients show does a ton of wine tastings, so we simply started with separating our “wine enthusiasts” into a separate database and emailed wine event information only to them. Then, we only sent reminders to those who opened the initial email invitation and significantly increased open rates, click through rates, reduced opt-outs and event attendance.

Before you move on to the next new shiny tool in your marketing toolbox, make sure you can truly hammer out great email campaigns.

For anyone looking for a new job (pay attention college grads) or trying to get that next big sale and running into a roadblock because you can’t get the attention of a key decision maker, check out this brilliant job search strategy by copywriter Alec Brownstein.

1. Brownstein used Google AdWords to target Ad Agency Creative Directors on Madison Avenue in New York
2. He bet 15 cents per click that these Creatives were no different than the rest of  us self absorbed people who Google ourselves
3. What the CD’s saw when they Googled themselves was a personal ad from Brownstein – BRILLIANT!
4. Young & Rubicam offered him a job!

Note: Brownstein’s Google Job Experiment YouTube video has been viewed over 500,000 times!  Rock on Alec!

Forrester says that by 2014 (see Advertising Age article), you and most of your customers are going to get over 9,000 email marketing messages a year which is about 25 messages per person per day or two times what you both got last year!

And, email marketing spending will increase to $2 billion in 2004 – about 2X what was spent last year!

So, what’s all this mean for marketers like you and how can you overcome your customer’s email irritation and overload?

Here are three ways to immediately improve your email marketing:

1. Integrate email marketing with social media communications since most young adults (18-24 year-olds) prefer it over email; over 20% of adults prefer it too
2. Segment email databases into smaller/tighter unique groups and send relevant, timely messages
3. Be religious about testing your email campaigns and work to improve your creative executions and copy writing

Good luck!

For our clients, I find that emailing campaigns early in the morning and early in the week provide better results. Early morning emails work better for us because it’s easier to get people’s attention before they jump into their daily activities. See B2B Magazine article here and this eMarketer chart which both agree. I’m sure early morning deployments work well for both B2C and B2B businesses alike.

Giving people ample time to react and respond along with a respectful reminder works wonders too. Marketers forget that not everyone opens their email every day and often their addresses are personal (non business) and may only get opened once a week.

Email timing is critical to the success of a marketing campaign. And, deciding the right time of day, and the precise day to deploy your email message is as important as the message itself, but many brands don’t pay enough attention to timing.

You need to get the timing right because your message competes with every other message received by land line phone, mail, social media and smart phones.

Pivotal Veracity discovered that the average elapsed time between when messages are first sent to when they are first seen is growing to about 26 hours.

See their report here: pivotal_veracity_email_engagement_index_q1_q3_2009

In addition, another email marketing best practice involves testing.  Email testing is pretty easy to do and I continue to be amazed by the lack of it by brands of all sizes. eMarketer reports that only about 63% of Marketers test their email campaigns! Ugh!

According to a recent ExactTarget study, 40% of email marketers’ lists are unengaged recipients and another 44% have a low level of engagement.

Different strokes (messages) for different folks is key to having an engaged database.

So, what can you test?  What should you try? Well, just about anything and everything! Check out just some of the opportunities in this chart:

Marketers need to  maximize message relevance and avoid sending email subject matter to people who do not care to receive it.

Try creative copy split-run email tests by taking your list and divide it in half (or thirds) and simply test two/three different subject lines or calls to action or other features such as copy, design, offers or more.

Start testing your email marketing campaigns. It’s easy…just do it!

In an earlier post, I reported that it was great to see the Gen Y kids driving the tremendous outpouring of financial support for Haiti relief via texting.

I’m happy to report that the American Red Cross “Text ‘Haiti’ to 90999″ campaign has raised $24 million to date. See the DMNews story here.

Think about this campaign for a moment. It has achieved some amazing accomplishments – in a short period of time – since this devastating earthquake hit Haiti just last week on January 12th:

• $24 million has been raised via $10 individual donations to help the Haitian people – 1/5th of the amount the American Red Cross has raised to date – breaking all records by a huge  margin.  Reference note: After Hurricane Katrina – a mere 4.5 years ago – the ARC only received $120,000 via texting – and Katrina occurred on American soil!
• The ARC has built a valuable mobile text database for future marketing communications and financial appeal efforts
• The ARC’s core donor base skews older and texting gave the Gen Y folks an easy, quick and convenient channel to offer their support (marketing lesson – treat different people differently)
• The campaign execution of  the ARC and its mobile firm partner mGive was flawless – amazing too – considering the fact that they started to work on the texting campaign the evening of the earthquake
• The viral goodwill spread of the “Text ‘HAITI’ to 90999″ campaign in Social Media channels such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (100K tweets/retweets)

If you think young people these days are inconsiderate, selfish, concerned with only themselves and wear their “pants on the ground“…think again.

Soon after the devastating Haiti earthquake hit, @RedCross tweeted: “You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti.”

Kudos to the Red Cross marketing folks for being prepared (excellent online disaster newsroom) and recognizing the fundraising opportunity available to them in this terrible time of crisis.

And, much more kudos to the kids that drove this “texting bus” because they’re the ones credited with leading this Red Cross effort which has raised over $10 million for the cause since this record breaking mobile fundraiser was launched last Tuesday.

This is a great example of using technology to build rather than destroy.

Watch text marketing grow from this effort and put in on your list of things to test for your business too!

P.S.: Here is a list of 8 ways you can help Haiti by texting:

1. Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
2. Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
3. Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
4. Text HAITI to 20222 to donate $10 through the Clinton Foundation
5. Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
6. Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
7. Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International
8. Text RELIEF to 30644 (to connect with Catholic Relief Services who will instruct you how to donate money with your credit card)

…the 9th way to help is to pray.

As a follow-up to my recent “Darwinian Marketing” post, I want to emphasize that successful people will not only be the ones who can most easily adapt to change, but they will most likely be faster than their competitors. That’s right.  In today’s economy and for as far as I can see into the future, it’s not about the strong beating or eating the weak, it’s all about the fast eating the slow for lunch!

At the top of my 2010 goals is to streamline processes, work smarter and faster and enjoy life more.  We’re all being tasked to do more with less, but there are ways to do it, make money and enjoy your life.

So, how can you become faster in business today? Here is my list to 25 ways you can work faster and position yourself to survive and thrive!

1. Read and embrace Stephen Covey’s best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” and work to excel in Quadrant II living
2. Be flexible and adaptable to new ideas and processes (think Darwin)
3. Work to rid yourself of distractions such as email, instant messaging, turn of the TV, turn your phone/s off and turn your music off (although I work quickly and calmly listening to classical and piano instrumental music)
4. Get rid of things that slow you down (clients, employees, suppliers)
5. Set up power hours of work blocks and prioritize on job at a time
6. In your email inbox, tag all emails with a project ID so you can resort your emails by subject or client and stay focused and fly through them.  For example, for a book I’m working on, I simply tag these emails “Book” first followed by related copy
7. Batch your email work – only respond at specific intervals 2-3 times per day
8. Batch your phone calls too – never answer unidentified calls
9. Get the fastest computer set-up you can afford
10. Set earlier deadlines – if a client’s expectation is 7 days, deliver it in 6.
11. Get up earlier and take good care of yourself to stay sharp
12. Outsource most anything that costs you below your hourly rate
13. Focus on the 20% of activities that reap 80% of the most rewards for you
14. Cut things to the core bare necessities and essentials and key features
15. Keep features, processes simple
16. Focus on those things that help you gain or keep a customer
17. Anticipate trends and act on them.  For example, mobile marketing is starting to smoke. Are you studying it, using it, putting together a skunkworks operation, looking into strategic alliances etc.?
18. Phase things in to keep customers happy and moving business forward
19. Create processing rules (see Tim Ferris’ stuff here – awesome read – love virtual assistant idea too – actually all of his stuff is brilliant – great book)
20. Create templates of your work to easily repeat efforts
21. Create processes
22. Create life and decision-based rules (see Marcus Aerilius’ Meditations)
23. Begin with and end goal in mind and then focus on all of the processes of everything you do to achieve the end, list all the steps and key critical path and look for ways to take wasted steps and time out of the process.  Rinse and repeat.
24. Look to eliminate all busy work that takes time away from building your business
25. Take one information day off per week – no phone, Blackberry, email etc. – rest and recharge your battery

I’m sure there are a ton more ideas – feel free to add!

During recessionary times, the first place people cut back is with their eating and drinking out dollars.

Sure, there is a progression. First, white table cloth restaurants are the first to feel the pinch, then casual, fast casual and then fast food.

After a scorching sales tear for some time, McDonald’s is now considering a $1.00 breakfast menu nationwide.

With unemployment at 10.2%, no one is safe.

Now it appears that people are buying less at the supermarket.

More are using shopping lists, feel prices are to high, hate the experience and nearly 8 out of 10 would flip brands on a deal! Loyalty be damned.

The restaurant and hospitality industry isn’t the only one suffering – every industry is suffering and only the smart, speedy and strong will survive. So, what can you do to succeed in these tough times?

Here are five marketing ideas to put on your shopping list that will help you survive and thrive in these tough times.

1. Do remarkable things that add value and drive word-of-mouth. Pretty simple statement, easy to understand, but so few do it. So, you do it. Positive word-of-mouth drives customer referrals, online reviews and media coverage while keeping your marketing costs low. Do something remarkably well.

Value offerings for specific reasons make sense (e.g., Anniversaries), but you need to watch it because deals are so easily copied and it’s difficult to move to higher prices when times get better.

You need to work on creating unique value priced offerings. People are re-thinking all of their purchases, so if you’re not truly giving value or a exceptional experience you better start. This requires packaging creativity and more customer focus.

List all the possible value-added services and amenities you offer and then look for ways to improve your customer’s experience for little or no cost to you.

If you’re in hospitality you could offer things such as free parking, free upgrades, late check-outs, drink certificates etc., and look to your marketing partenrs to help defray the costs.

Deliver value in creative unique packaged experiences.

If you’re average player in a today’s recessionary economy, you’re running backwards and you’re a loser.

2. Keep the Heat On. If you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind. Don’t just arbitrarily cut your advertising, but look for ways to more effectively spend or not spend it.  Get into social media marketing, improve  the search results of your web site, network.  Create stronger, more emotional appeals for your goods and services.

3. Strengthen Your Customer Relationships. Strengthen your sales force and put together win-back and retention strategies. Work to maximize the lifetime value of your key customers and integrate all of your communication messages into relevant targeted appeals.

4. Build a Centralized Segmented Marketing Database. The bedrock of all customer relationship management strategies is a unified, centralized and segmented marketing database. Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to set up and manage a CRM system today.

5. Become a Direct Marketing Master. Direct marketing needs to take a greater role in your business plan whether it be direct sales, email, mail, phone etc., The most effective weapon is email marketing to current customers (but smartly segment them).

This is a good list to follow, but make sure you do not skip the first step!

The MarketingSherpa (BIG FAN) chart above, shows one view of how email is used to share information – an activity central to social media sites. You can see how dominant Email still is when it comes to information sharing!

When you look at all forms of media over the past 50-100 years, you’ll see what Marketing Sherpa sees and that is, “a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.”

I agree.  How do I know? Well, I’m 47 years old, I’m a Marketer (traditional and Social Media too) and I still enjoy my reading my newspaper in the morning and I love to listen to Mike & Mike on ESPN radio in the morning.

That’s right. I still read newspapers and listen to the radio and watch TV…don’t you?

P.S.: I use Twitter for writing telegrams – R.I.P Western Union.

We’ve been actively engaged in the Blogging scene since late 2004/early 2005 so it’s no surprise that we jumped in early with two feet into the Web 2.0 scene.  However, when you and everyone around you is jumping into the latest and greatest, a good strategy is to pause and reflect on how well you perform on the basics.

These email open and click through rate charts from eMarketer – overall and by industry – should help you benchmark your basic email marketing success.

With the Direct Marketing Association stating that email marketing drives an ROI of $45.06 for each $1.00 spent, this killer app needs more care and feeding.

I consider email marketing part of the “basics” most SME brands fail to bulletproof.  And, because the technology is so inexpensive these days many brands defer email execution to inexperienced juniors with some of the creative output looking like ransom notes!

Marketers need to pay much closer attention to email marketing – they’re leaving money on the table.