I enjoy receiving email marketing, but as a marketer, I’m not really normal.  I like to analyze the subject lines in my Hotmail and give them ratings, and peruse them for any indication of today’s social or political climate. You can learn a lot about what’s going on by the email marketing you receive. For instance, if you always forget about Mother’s Day or Election Day, just sign up for a lot of email newsletters, and you’ll get plenty of reminders about important upcoming holidays and spending opportunities.

When there are few “natural” reasons to communicate with subscribers, direct marketers have to generate other reasons to send intriguing email marketing.  And, when this is done on a regular schedule, it can grow challenging to the creative mind.  Recently I received an email from 24-Hour Fitness that I thought was quite clever. (No, not the “take your mom to the gym for a free workout” one.  That, not such a hot idea!) The one I liked was the “24 years. 12 million lives.” campaign.

It is mathematically pleasing, with tying in the name of the company to the years, and then having a nice, round half-value for the second part. So, I clicked to see what this more subtle than usual sales pitch would be.

As a marketer, I found it interesting that their email campaign is driving visitors to their own “social media” site, where users can read inspiring stories, enter their own stories, and comment on others’ stories. 

There is a smattering of regular guy testimonials mixed in with a few super star athletes, in case we were to forget that it’s a big-budget Internet marketing campaign. The writing is also a mix of professional marketers as well as comments that I can only guess are being made by the real users. Or, very clever marketers disguising their persuasive abilities in bad grammar, punctuation, and notes about how hot one particular lady is in her jogging picture.

The first time I visited the site, the links were a bit buggy, with many of the home page stories going to error messages, but that appears to be fixed. One other non-user friendly programming issue is the links to the user profiles.  They take readers to a truncated version of the story, without indicating that it is not the real story, which makes the writing just look bad. If you are not persistent enough to keep clicking around, you may never see the actual story, and most consumers will not wallow in our direct marketing propaganda for long. No matter how ingenious the design team believes it is.

Overall, I give one check in the plus column for a good use of combined email and Internet marketing for this direct marketing giant.  Maybe I’ll check on FaceBook to see if they have a group there, and see how seriously social these guys really are!

Click here to see for yourself   

At a recent Seattle Direct Marketing Association networking and learning event, representatives of the Parnassus Group presented on how to use social media in your Internet marketing mix. One of the topics they covered was how to monitor your organization’s coverage in the vast, vast Blogosphere. 

Due to a technical snag, attendees at the event weren’t able to view this part of the presentation.  But, our friends in marketing at Parnassus have created a quickie tutorial that can be viewed at their web site.

If you are a direct mail or email marketer, or any other kind of communications manager, and are not monitoring the Blogosphere because it seems too complicated, then this is good new for you!

These are easy-to-follow directions that can get you set-up to monitor any direct marketing (or other) news you want to follow in just a few minutes:

<http://parnassusgroup.com/2008/03/monitoring-the-blogosphere-with-google-reader-a-follow-up-to-the-sdma-presentation/>

It was standing room only on Wednesday night 11/7 for the Trends in Email Marketing event at The Bellevue Club.  ExactTarget sponsored, DRG offered free cocktails to attendees, the bar was humming and we had a who's who of Seattle and Portland marketers. A few board members relinquished their dining seats to accommodate the event guests.

A knock out panel of marketing experts spoke about email marketing:  Annette Barnes, Director of Email Marketing from Alaska Airlines, Stacy Bennett, Online Marketing Manager from Tommy Bahama and Cheryl Engelaer, Group Marketing Manager of Microsoft.  Our moderator Justin Foster, VP of Professional Services at WhatCounts assembled the panel and facilitated an in depth discussion.  

Our surprise guest was Craig Spiezle, Director of Online Safety from Microsoft.  I saw Craig speak about email deliverability at the first annual ExactTarget Connections conference in Indianapolis this fall and was really impressed—so invited him to join us.  Not only did he join us, but he co-moderated the panel!  (Note: ExactTarget was the sponsor of this event.)  

Craig is a founder and chairman of the Authentication Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) in addition to being the director of online safety at MS.  Although our event focused on trends, RFM scoring and more — it was great to have Craig talk about deliverability which is a huge part of email marketing today.

In the past email marketers knew the rules:  avoid spam words such as FREE in content and be diligent about list management.  But that's all changed.  Now what matters is your online reputation which is comprised of a number of factors.  Frequency and volume of emails sent, whether your IP is registered and most importantly the relevance of your emails.  

This means that getting content appropriate messages to the people who want them is what counts.  Even people who've opted in to receive your communications "junk" your mail when it comes more frequently than they desire or the content doesn't meet their needs.  The process of junking your mail, negatively impacts your reputation—and there's the challenge.  Your deliverability goes down and in the worst case scenario you're black listed. So segmenting into audiences is just a starting place.  You also have to sub-segment your audience into different types of recipients.  Don't continue to send emails to someone who never opens them.  Instead, perhaps send a survey, or email them less frequently.

Welcome to the first week of the SDMA blog.

My name is Cynthia Cruver and I’m the SDMA’s ’07-’08 president. Sharon Long Baerny of We Know Words, left the organization to me in good order at the end of her presidency last year. And not only that, she set up the new blog spot. (Thank you Sharon.)

In 2004, the national Direct Marketing Association (DMA) based in NYC cut loose its local chapters and a scrappy bunch of entrepreneurial DM professionals picked up the pieces and built a very nice organization. The difference? More relevant content for our regional market place that focuses heavily on new technology and DM techniques. The organization continues to evolve with 100% volunteer labor and offers fabulous direct marketing networking.

This year we set out to clear up a few misunderstandings about the SDMA and direct marketing in general. Direct marketers don’t just put paper in the US postal system—we use a variety of media to illicit responses—direct email marketing, paper, online and more. Email marketers are direct marketers. And, there’s a big difference between the DMA and SDMA.

The board repositioned the .org with the help of SDMA VP of Marketing, Stuart Gordon of the Hacker Group. (See new positioning statement at the end of this post.)

Before I close, here’s a little about me. My day job is as a partner and account executive for GCDirect, a boutique DM firm located in Seattle, Washington. Previous to this business I was a partner at Three a.m. Direct. I help B2B and B2C marketers generate new customers and maintain existing customers.

From a personal standpoint I love the SDMA because I always come away from the meetings with new information and new tools I can immediately use to help my clients and my own business. Meeting for dinner and drinks (rather than lunch or breakfast), makes the learning more fun and less pressured (i.e. don’t have to rush back to the office or a meeting and get to have a cocktail which is always nice!)

On November 7 we have an amazing set of marketers speaking about the latest in email practices from Tommy Bahama, Expedia, Alaska Airlines and Microsoft. Something for everyone with actionable items to take away and use immediately. This meeting is our first EVER east side event to be held at The Bellevue Club in Bellevue. Please join us!

A special thanks to Compendium for sponsoring the SDMA with their compended blogging ASP. Thank you Chris Baggot!

And here’s who we are today:

The SDMA connects area marketing professionals with new ideas and emerging technologies. It nurtures innovative thinking in all areas of marketing, including ecommerce, creative development, data and production. Frequently scheduled events feature prominent speakers on a variety of relevant and cutting-edge topics, as well as quality networking SDMA membership is open to all interested marketing professionals.