Scrappy Software now becomes Scrappy Email - My Blog is Moving

I have not posted anything on this site for awhile as I have been in a period of transition in my life. After 7 1/2 great years at Quest Software, I decided to leave for bigger and better challenges. I decided to join Sears Holdings as the Manager of Email Marketing Transformation and therefore, I have decided to slowly phase out this blog and start a new one dedicated to email marketing.

I will of course keep this one open for as long as people want but will start to post most of my entries a The Scrappy Email Marketer. Please visit my new blog anytime and I look forward to another exciting journey with you.

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, scrappy software, new blog, email, transformation, andrew kordek, kordek

Del.icio.us Tags:
email marketing, scrappy software, new blog, email, transformation, andrew kordek, kordek

Abuse email account

Do you have an abuse@ email account? Do you monitor it or does someone else?

Having this account is essential and monitoring is even more important.  Sometimes you can take this account and market with it.

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, email, direct marketing, relationship building, marketing, spam, permission based, opt in, opt out, implied opt in

Del.icio.us Tags:
email marketing, email, direct marketing, relationship building, marketing, spam, permission based, opt in, opt out, implied opt in

3 Tips to Optimize Your Email Landing Pages

Marc Kline has a great post on ways to optimize the landing pages. What I took from this post was the fact that you should not only check your links but check the landing page. I will take it one step further than that. You need to experience what the user experiences. Get the email, click the links and do a desired action. How easy was it for you to order the item? What was your experience like in going through the order and what sort of response or “love” did you get after it was placed. Bottom line is..the email can get folks there, but if you have no idea what they are going thru once they get there, the email wont make a difference.

You can read the full post here.

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, email, landing pages, user experience, transactional email, transaction, action, analytics, web site, shopping cart

Del.icio.us Tags:
email marketing, email, landing pages, user experience, transactional email, transaction, action, analytics, web site, shopping cart

Please please, send me email

Recently, I signed up at an online retailer as an experiment into their email practices. After finding the spot on their site to subscribe, I was taken to a login screen, where I had to create and account, with my full name and postal address. I wasn’t asked my email preferences or any profiling information, but I had to create an account in order to get their emails. Ok. So beyond the frustration of setting up an account (it was a single opt in), I never received a “thank you” email for signing up to their site.

1 week went by. Nothing.

9 days went by. Nothing. So I logged back into their site to see if I indeed went thru their process right and low and behold, everything was fine.

Day 10. First email from them.

Here is what is wrong. I SIGNED UP TO GET EMAIL. THEY ARE A MAJOR ONLINE RETAILER….and I had to wait 10 days to get an email?! Heck at one of their competitors, I signed up and within 2 days I received their latest pitch. In addition, on their competitors site, I was able to set my preferences and chose from a variety of options to receive some other emails. At another competitor, I was just asked for my email address and was given the option to creating an account and was able to chose my preference of HTML or TEXT. I got a fairly decent “thank you” and am still waiting for my email. (I just did it today…just to see)

THE POINT IS: If you are a retailer trying to sell me stuff, make it easy, ask for my preferences (and not my postal), send me a decent “thank you email” and send me email (heck even if its last weeks mailing) to get my whet my appetite. Start our relationship showing that you care and not leave me hanging for 10 days, hell I almost forgot about you.

Technorati Tags:
email, retailers, email marketing, sign up, accounts, online shopping, profiling, behavior targeting, department stores

Video in Emails

Unless you live in a cave, one of the hottest trends around these days is video. I have long talked about sending video in email but understand the limitations of rendering and blocking etc. However today, I am going to conduct a series of experiments unbeknown-st to some of my peeps in the organization about the delivery of video in emails. If my experiments work, I will start to do some testing with a group with my organization that seems keen to being the testing bed/guinea pigs of new and exciting things. In addition, if I am successful, it might change the way alot of us think about video in emails

Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, email, direct marketing, relationship building, marketing, spam, permission based, opt in, opt out, implied opt in, video, new media

Del.icio.us Tags:
email marketing, email, direct marketing, relationship building, marketing, spam, permission based, opt in, opt out, implied opt in, video, new media

Graphics in email and mastheads

I recently wrote a strategy brief for my current organization on recent email marketing trends and issues facing email marketers. In it, I discussed a few of the most prevalent issues and offered up solutions for those vexing problems. I was on a call yesterday with someone in my organization who said that he read my document and that it contradicted itself on whether or not to use images or mastheads within email.

I think what some people fail to realize is that email marketing is both an art and a science and there is no generally acceptable practice or method by which you should engage your users in email marketing. Each piece of email is unique to audience and depending upon your audience and message, will determine whether or not you use images within a particular piece.

However, one of the things that I do caution against is the use of image laden emails with calls to actions embedded in your image or the use of images as a primary driver for your email. I am strictly speaking about B2B email as this might not apply if you are selling toasters online in the B2C area. Often, I run across people who are more hung up on moving the masthead image over a 1/4 of an inch to fit in that last bit of text thinking its going to drive ROI. I also run across people who will wait weeks for a custom image to be made and embedded into the email, but give little thought as to their message content and whether or not its compelling enough to drive actions.

Bottom line: Be smart about the use of images in your email. Worry more about the content and the compelling drivers to action in the email and worry more about nurturing the user and establishing a healthy long term relationship with them as opposed to choosing red or green for that must have background image of the hotel your seminar is at.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, roi, direct marketing, marketing automation, campaigns, SMS, mobile messaging, plain text, mobile email marketing, 2008 trends, trend, content, widgets, gadgets, video email, testing, split testing, multivariate testing, taguchi testing, images, mastheads, pictures, gif

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, roi, direct marketing, marketing automation, campaigns, SMS, mobile messaging, plain text, mobile email marketing, 2008 trends, trend, content, widgets, gadgets, video email, testing, split testing, multivariate testing, taguchi testing, images, mastheads, pictures, gif

Worst Subject Lines

I receive alot of email. I also receive alot of spam. Here are some of the worst subjects I have received in the recent days. Would love to know yours.

Milkshake Solid Chocolates Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:04:42 +1200 Toilet

Ashamed of your size!

Keep her on it all night..

i êîðïîðàòèâíàÿ èíòåãðèðîâàííàÿ ëîãèñòèêà (my personal favorite)

Re” Your Pharm ccy Invoice # 818

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, subject lines, database

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, subject lines, database

2008 Email Marketing Trends

ExactTarget has a great white paper out on trends for email marketing in 2008. 2 of the trends that interest me the most are #3 - The birth of the Marketing Gadget (widgets for you Mac Heads) and Trend #8 Rendering (which mostly deals with mobile email marketing)

While my organization is very far from even thinking about Trend #3, Trend #8 is an interesting one and I am about to put things into place in order ensure we are doing the best we can with mobile devices. Since there is no clear cut standard on mobile email marketing as of yet, it will be interesting to see how this will evolve in the coming 18 months.

This white paper is one of the best white papers I have read in the last 6 months or so as it does provide some valuable insight into what professional email marketers can do to increase success in the marketplace. Since organizations rely heavily on email marketing these days, this is a cant miss opportunity for you to at least try to implement some best practices discussed in this paper.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, roi, direct marketing, marketing automation, campaigns, SMS, mobile messaging, plain text, mobile email marketing, 2008 trends, trend, content, widgets, gadgets, video email, testing, split testing, multivariate testing, taguchi testing

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, roi, direct marketing, marketing automation, campaigns, SMS, mobile messaging, plain text, mobile email marketing, 2008 trends, trend, content, widgets, gadgets, video email, testing, split testing, multivariate testing, taguchi testing

Things to Avoid in Your Email Newsletters

Although a bit basic for experienced email marketers, those of you just starting out or wanting a refresher in some of the basics, EMMA has a good post of things to not do in email marketing.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing, images, alt tags

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing, images, alt tags

Use of ALT Tags in email

I receive between 250-300 emails a day at work. About 40% of them are mailing lists that I subscribe too. As a rule, I block out all of the images from the emails just to see how email marketers structure their emails. (I even block my own orgs email images for testing) and I am amazed at how many (in fact alot) of people do not use ALT Tags with their images.

I get the standard “right click here to download pictures…..” which blows because if they use ALT Tags, I would be able to at least see teaser copy since my images dont render……oh well…one can only hope people will correct it.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing, images, alt tags

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing, images, alt tags

Liars Liars….marketing pants on fire!!!

There was a an article today in Daily Mail about lying. It says that everyone tells an average of 4 little lies a day or 88,000 over a lifetime. So without further adieu, I bring you the top 10 enterprise software marketing lies overheard at recent meetings.

10. No.I really think that storyboard where that pygmy is drinking carrot juice totally represents comprehensive dynamic reduction on the server level

9. The customer is completely happy with the recent patch and will be easy to get a reference out of.

8. Version 8.0 is way better than 7.5

7. Pop up banner ads really work

6. I don’t think scrolling down 15 times on our newsletter with 37 links is too much information for people to read.

5. Dude….viral campaigns are easy..we can bust one out by the end of the week!!!

4. No one ever told me I need to create a tactical plan to run a campaign.

3. I think a great way to gain awareness is to create a community….no a discussion group….wait….how about a Community Discussion Group with a blog where we have people talk about the product? Yea..thats great…will totally build awareness man!!

2. Don’t worry we have the budget.

1. We kicked a*s on ROI on that last campaign

Technorati Tags:
marketing, web marketing, liars, campaigns, viral, web 2.0, communities, discussion groups, blogs, corporate blogs, newsletters, email marketing, product marketing, roi, marketing metrics

Del.icio.us Tags:
marketing, web marketing, liars, campaigns, viral, web 2.0, communities, discussion groups, blogs, corporate blogs, newsletters, email marketing, product marketing, roi, marketing metrics

Yahoo and Spamhaus

It appears the Yahoo is changing the game a bit on deliverability issues. In this post from Word to the Wise, it explains the new method that Yahoo will use to block connections from listed IP address.

Good to see that Yahoo is taking some measures to really block spam, and although its a hurdle for legitimate email marketers, I view it as an opportunity for those of us who live in the email marketing world to boost deliverability rates to yahoo. If done right, a legitimate email marketer can capitalize.

Technorati Tags:
yahoo, spamhaus, sbl, xbl, pbl, IP, email, email marketing, deliverability, spam, database marketing, dnsbl

Del.icio.us Tags:
yahoo, spamhaus, sbl, xbl, pbl, IP, email, email marketing, deliverability, spam, database marketing, dnsbl

Personalization - A Little Effort Goes a Long Way

Tom Gray over at The Evolving Internet Marketer has a great post on email personalization.

In short, its all about creating a connection with your audience and every little bit helps. Thanks Tom for that reminder that we all need.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, personlization, CRM, Customer, relationships

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, personlization, CRM, Customer, relationships

New Year…New Marketing

Is 2008 going to be more of the same for you in marketing?

Is the lure of communities and new media marketing speaking to you in a special way?

Are you going to continue down the same path as you have for the last several years of rinse and repeat marketing?

As the new year has come and you begin to solidify your 08 marketing plans, try to think a little bit outside the box and talk to those folks who can bring in a fresh perspective to perhaps your stale ways. Don’t get caught in a marketing rut and don’t think for a moment that what you did in 2007 or 2006 will work again in 2008.

Branch out and fly young one….don’t be afraid.

Technorati Tags:
new media, marketing 2.0, web 2.0, new marketing, marketing, software, large companies, facebook, blogging, youtube

Del.icio.us Tags:
new media, marketing 2.0, web 2.0, new marketing, marketing, software, large companies, facebook, blogging, youtube

Group on Facebook for Email Marketing Professionals

As you know, I don’t like to plug stuff on my blog, but I just started a Facebook Group for email marketing professionals. If you work in the area of email marketing, are associated with email marketing or just want to learn more, I encourage you to join and see where it takes us. I want all who join to gain value and contribute any expertise you may have.

You can find the group here.

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing

Never Underestimate the Power of Email Marketing!

The Marketing Blog has a post about a recent survey done by Daran Media indicating that companies plan to increase the use of email. It found that 70.5% reported plans to increase spending on e-mail acquisition and 63% to increase spending on retention campaigns. In addition, 83% of respondents expect e-mail ROI to increase during the New Year. E-mail optimization techniques, including landing pages, subject line testing and triggered messaging, were unanimously ranked as “very important.”

Technorati Tags:
email markeitng, marketing, retention, email, database marketing, daran media, the marketing blog, marketingscoop.com, Michael Fleischner, ROI, messaging

Del.icio.us Tags:
email markeitng, marketing, retention, email, database marketing, daran media, the marketing blog, marketingscoop.com, Michael Fleischner, ROI, messaging

How to Fix Your Email Deliverability - 4 Easy Strategies to Lift Deliverability

MarketingSherpa has a great case study today on email deliverability. One of the practices that my organization has gotten away from is dealing with bounces/permanent failures. This is something that I hope to correct in the coming months. One of the things we have done is sign up for the feedback loops from some of the ISP’s, but since we are B2B and we send email to all over the world, its sometimes hard to identify all of the major ISP’s that we deliver through.

Nonetheless, this is a great case that everyone can gain value from.

Technorati Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketingsherpa, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing

Del.icio.us Tags:
email, email marketing, deliverability, ISP’s, bounce rates, marketingsherpa, marketing, database marketing, copy, writing

Don’t pay any attention to this post…….

How often do you pay attention to industry sites ads? Ya…I thought so………I have been hearing alot lately about how online ad budgets are either flat or slightly increasing next year and I am wondering if the money that software companies pour into online advertising is worth it? Do they have an hard ROI on the leads that they generate or are they pie in the sky numbers? What if a company were to find out that they poured $500k into ads for a particular product, generated a ton of leads, but the sales folks got no where with them? I wonder how much the company would be willing to invest in more ads the following go around.

Often marketing departments are so focused on bringing in the leads and looking that the CPL that they tend to lose site of the big picture of what it truly cost them to get that lead in and what happened once it got there. Yea yea yea…age old closed looped issue right?

How about instead of sitting around and talking about it, more companies begin to put a plan of action in place to either eliminate or curb the spend of online ads until they can be truly measured. Sounds deceptively simple huh?

Technorati Tags:
software, marketing, software marketing, lead nuturing, online advertising, advertising, automation, ROI, CPL, CPI, marketing metrics, metrics

Top 5 Promises not to make in email marketing

5. You want to blast the entire database for your seminar in Chicago? Sure..I am sure some of them want to fly there for a 3 hour presentation

4. Sure we can embed the video and send a 500K pdf attachment….it should get through

3. I will be more than happy to send out that email on Christmas Eve, we might even get a higher response

2. Targetting the CIO or CEO’s inbox is a great idea, I am sure they read their email

1. Nah…..I am sure we wont get on any blacklists if we send it this way..

Technorati Tags:
email marketing, email, direct marketing, relationship building, marketing, spam,