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.