Golden Leads

Today I spoke at the Houston AMA on market research and one of the questions that came up is how much should you research your opt-in list compared to going to an external list and qualifying them. Some of the discussion surrounded the purity of market research and how you should focus on blind surveying, “who” should ask for the survey (you or the MR firm), and if you should even consider using your own list.

I worked at Gartner for 5 years managing custom primary research projects for clients like Dell, Microsoft and HP. During that time I did not think even consider in-house lists because of th the “biased” nature of the list. Now running marketing campaigns for similar companies I have found that in-house lists are comprised of those people with interest in your company, so wouldn’t you want to get their feedback first? So why is there such a polarizing effect between marketing and market research? Why can’t they work together? Isn’t the end goal to craft messaging and products to sell more? Aren’t both pieces of information important?

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

Me and 4 of my co-workers are in this competition tonight for the Portland, OR Advertising Federation. (Band name: Evil Rock Overlords Inc.) We are the last of the 7 bands and should be going on around 9:30. Each band plays 3 songs. We will be playing Judas Priest, Motley Crue and Spinal Tap. Should be hilarious if you are out and about. This will be your one chance to see me in leather pants or tight jean shorts.

PAF’s Battle of the Bands Presented by Comcast Spotlight
June 26, 2007 / 7:00 PM / at Someday Lounge

PAF’s Battle of the Bands is a night of fun dedicated to those in our industry that have the Rock Star desire! For one night the musical talent in our industry will live in the spotlight and on the red carpet. Many of our member agencies have their own house bands, BotB will feature 7 totally awesome “butt” bands competing to find out who is the best (for this year at least!). It will be a fun night supported by advertising’s most talented - in and out of leather pants!
Buy your tickets at the door, this will definitely be a standing room only night! Rock On!

Event Cost: PAF Members $10.00 / Non-Members: $10.00

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

Web Worker Daily is a blog that gives you tips and resources on getting through the life as an internet worker. Very relevant content for all aspects of Internet jobs - from developers to sales.

I really enjoy the blog and have been turned on to a ton of great tools, tips, apps, and more through this site and it has made it into my daily reading.

The gang at GigaOM do a great job with this blog. Keep up the great content!

Here is a post on “How to Use LinkedIn Effectively” which has made me fianlly realize what to do with this site. http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/15/20-ways-to-use-linkedin-productively/#more-882

Thanks to Return on Subscriber for this great article.

A client of mine in the beautiful state of Colorado came up with a great promotion to drive new business that was new to these jaded eyes - a drawing for an iPhone.

This contest proved to be very successful for my client - Kudos Heidi, great idea!

The best contests/giveaways build off something that has its’ own buzz, outside of your brand.

Take for example, the iPod (which may be the quintessential giveaway of this decade). The iPod took the world by storm and had an established place as a must-have for anyone who considers themselves as “with it”.

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I clicked on this banner ad (which I rarely do) the other day. I like cheeseburgers, I like heavy metal, what the heck, right?

McDonald’s “Burgercon” told me to go to the microsite www.Burgerconitson.com. I went, they told me it was on, ran through some amusing flash, and then to IM or email a friend the same URL.

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It turns out Hawaiians have a very different view of spam than most of us here on the mainland. It’s true. First and foremost, Spam is something you eat in Hawaii, not something you filter. Check out the latest news on the “war on spam” <grin>.

Thanks to Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey for this great article.

Legitimate email marketers, anti-spam groups and beleaguered recipients got a bit of good news with the arrest last week of a man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers.

Robert Alan Soloway, 27, dubbed “the Seattle Spammer” by federal officials, was indicted on 35 charges related to fraudulent Internet activities. Soloway pleaded not guilty to all charges at his May 30 arraignment. You can read more here.

Although it’s always great when a notorious spammer gets put out of business, such actions probably won’t result in a drop in the amount of spam that gets sent. Illicit spam rings have sprung up across the globe, and more and more spammers are delivering more and more spam than ever into people’s inboxes.

According to this Online Times article, email security firm IronPort said there hasn’t been any notable drop in the volume of spam since Soloway’s arrest, with 70 billion messages in a 24-hour period, unchanged from two weeks earlier. The company also said the volume of global spam has doubled from about 36 billion a day since last May.

Hopefully, highly publicized arrests and increasingly stiffer penalties will send a message to spammers that they face very real consequences for their actions. But in the end, as long as people continue to buy things from spam, there will be people to send it. And as long as spam is profitable, there will be more of it, not less.

Thanks to Email Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey for this great article.

So I got an email today about how we differ from what this person saw as a competitor, InetGiant. Of course you got to take a look when you have never heard of the company, but it looks like they do offer email services so naturally I started comparing features and benefits. I don’t know if we can hang with these guys…They do have the BEST SYSTEM EVER.

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Have you ever booked a restaurant online? I often do when I am traveling and have found Open Table to be one of the best. But I recently found that they had my information wrong when I got this email. Now it was not any of my more important information they had wrong, but my city. I thought to myself, nice that they know I like to eat out in Las Vegas, but I don’t live there. I first wondered how it was targeted with this info (add 5 to the score for sending relevant content targeted emails) but then realized that the last time I used them was for a dinner at CES in Las Vegas. My bad.

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Birthdays are a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. As my company recently celebrated its fifth birthday, I did just that. Below are my thoughts on the most significant email marketing trends over the past five years and my predictions for the future.

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