DreamGrow Social Media

How to Switch Email Marketing Provider

I read John Chow’s Ultimate Blog Profit Model and got a lot of ideas out of it. Thanks John! Now I have to start implementing.

One thing that I noticed was the problem of moving email lists from provider to provider. I have similar problem. My current provider doesn’t have the functionality I need and I need to transfere the list. The outlook to lose 80% of the list is not very good.

So, I came up with this solution. Don’t move the list, ask them to go to a new list. We think we move the list from provider to provider but actually we create a new list where people have to opt in. So do not kill the old list. Just remove the people who joined the new list. Use two lists at the same time and give the members of the old list reasons to join the new list.

1. Set up new provider.
2. Move the list to new provider that sends out opt in notices.
3. Remove those who opted in to a new list from old one.
4. Start sending incentives to old list that make them join the new list.

This way you can retain people who say no to a simple confimation notice but are actually interested in what you are offering. The people who will not join the new list will be eventually dropped. But don’t worry they weren’t important for you anyways.

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Image credit: ilker

Email helps to pave the road to social media engagement

A study from Harris Interactive and commissioned by Pontiflex found that only 12 percent of online adults are willing to share their social media profiles with brands. On the other hand almost everyone (96 percent) is willing to give their email address to marketeers for discounts, special offers and information.

2,064 online adults age 18 and older were surveyed. The willingness to share their social media information declined with age. Percentages for different age groups were

• 18-34y – 17%
• 35-44y – 8%
• 45-54y – 7%

This shows that email is still a potent tool to get consumers engaged in personal interaction. So, marketers should start with the email, build a relationship and move on to engage people in social media sites.

“Building a relationship in the social networking space is not very different from building a relationship in the real world. Once marketers have built relationships and trust through e-mail, they then engage consumers in relevant ways on social networking sites.” — Pontiflex CEO Zephrin Lasker

Other interesting finding from the survey that support the use of email:

• 68% of online adults are more likely to trust a brand they hear from often and that offers them personalized deals or information online
• 78% of online adults said they dislike having to leave their destination when they click on a banner ad
• 47% of online adults said they have intentionally clicked on ads on a website

According to data from Nielsen:

“It actually appears that social media use makes people consume email more, not less, as we had originally assumed — particularly for the highest social media users,” — Jon Gibs, VP of media analytics at Nielsen

The Direct Marketing Association projected that email marketing will generate an ROI of $43.52 in 2009 — twice the return earned by other marketing channels.

Social media on marketers menu for 2010

Social media is on the menu for most marketers next year. A survey of MediaPost subscribers found that more than half plan to have a presence on social networks as part of their marketing mix in 2010.

What is not clear from the report, however, is the level of spend the survey respondents intended to allocate to social media. Many companies are aware that they need to be in the social space but are still testing the water and large spends are unlikely. The resulting list of popular media for 2010 is as follows:

• Email, with 56.8% realistically planning to use it

• Social networks 56.3%

• Keyword search 49.7%

by Helen Leggatt via Social media on marketers menu for 2010 – Trends & Ideas – BizReport.