Internet Marketing Course BLOG

By Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
November 17, 2010

Everyone reading this post probably knows this by now, but I think it’s always good to be reminded by someone (me) who just saw why again!

I was just cleaning out my overfull email in box and the way I did it gave me a BGO – a Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious!

To “weed thru” those emails, I only looked at the subject line and the author of each email and then made a split second decision – read it immediately and respond, if necessary (rare), save it to a folder (a few) or delete it (most)!

Why is my email in box overflowing? Because I subscribe to too many newsletters! So to keep my in box manageable, I could simply unsubscribe to a bunch of them. But I don’t want to because every now and then even the ones I don’t open/read frequently come up with a gem and I don’t want to miss them.

I also had a backup in my in box of emails I HAD to do something about and thought if I filed them away in a folder, I’d never get to it. Again, probably true!

So now that my in box is almost empty, how am I going to try to keep it that way? I’m going back to Business Correspondence 101.

Whenever I look at my email in box, I’m only going to allow myself “one touch” of each email, and that one touch is going to result in one of the following actions: open, read it and respond if necessary (then probably save it if I’ve already invested that much time!), delete it or save it to a folder for future reference/response.

And what criteria am I going to use to decide which action to take? You guessed it – subject line and author!

So back to my original point: if you’re not Mark Twain (or Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan – you get the idea) or someone I know, then you better have a GREAT email subject line to make the cut!

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eMarketer
June 5, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): Quite detailed report with demographics in very interesting age segments (7 segments, 15-17 all the way up to 65+ plus a “Totals” column) and communications types. Worth a look!

“Text and instant messaging are fine for friends, but not for marketers.

That was the main finding of ExactTarget’s “2008 Channel Preference Survey.”

Nearly two-thirds of US Internet users surveyed said e-mail was their preferred channel for written communications between friends, with text messaging the next-favorite choice. The phone was the most popular way to communicate with friends overall, with 41% of respondents naming it as their channel of choice.

“There is a clear trend within younger demographics toward communication via text messaging and social networks,” said Morgan Stewart, director of research and strategy at ExactTarget, in a statement.

But Mr. Stewart said those preferred personal communication channels were not necessarily also preferred channels for marketing.”

Read the entire article at:

Consumers Want Your Email

Technorati Tags:Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing

Link to: Internet Marketing Course

From: DirectMag
May 21, 2008

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): This survey re-affirms the importance, now and in the future, of email communications with your Customers. Especially interesting to me was the importance that 18-34 year olds in this survey placed on email communications, now and for the next 5 years.

“Consumers prefer e-mail as a primary method of communications in their personal and business capacities and will continue to do so in the future despite the rise of online threats and the emergence of other communication channels, according to a study by Habeas.

The report also revealed an interest from consumers in gaining more control over their online interactions with businesses and an increasing level of concern over spam and virus threats reaching consumers through their mobile devices.

‘Regardless of their concerns over e-mail and online threats, consumers are becoming even more dependent on e-mail for their relationships with each other, via social networks and Web 2.0 applications, and those with whom they do business,’ said Des Cahill, CEO of the online reputation management firm.”

Read the entire article at:

Consumers Prefer E-Mail: Survey

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by eROI
via MarketingCharts.com

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): Wednesday isn’t just “Prince Spaghetti Day” anymore – according to eROI, it’s also the best day to send your email blasts!

“The best day of the week to send email in the third quarter was Wednesday, according to the most recent eROI benchmark study of email-campaign clickthrough and open rates (via Direct magazine).

According to eROI’s Q3 data:

* The average open rate on Wednesdays in the third quarter was 25.4 percent, and the average click rate was 3.9 percent.
* The second-best day for email was Monday, which had an average open rate of 24.7 percent and click rate of 3.1 percent.
* The highest average click rate — 5.0 percent — was Saturday, which also had the lowest open rate: 18.7 percent.
* The third-highest open and click rates were Thursday: 23.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively.

Time of Day

As for the best time of day for open and click rates, during the heaviest email volumes (8 AM to 5 PM), there’s a marked upward trend as time passes, eROI said. That is, both open and click rates gradually increase:

* From a low of 2.6 percent at 8 AM to a high of 6.4 percent at 4 PM (down to 5.2 percent at 5 PM), in the case of click rates.
* From a low of 21.4 percent at 8 AM to a high of 34.1 percent at 5 PM, in the case of opens.”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following link:

Wednesday Best Email Day in Q3, Late Afternoon Best Time of Day

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Lisa Phillips
Senior Analyst
eMarketer

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): The “digital” slice of the pharma marketing pie just keeps getting bigger each year, as this article highlights with some very interesting details about where the digital marketing dollars are being spent.

“The endless text of pharma disclaimers is at home on the Web.

Web sites are getting pharmaceutical marketers’ interactive budgets this year, according to a new study by the Medical Broadcasting Company (MBC) and CBI Research.

A plurality of pharma marketers said site spending would be most likely to get their budgets this year.”

Read the entire article at:

Digital Pharma Marketers Keep It Simple

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