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Over on Twitter last week @JapanNewbie asked me about how to get people viewing old posts on your blog once they drop off the front page. In this video I tackle the question with 5 suggestions including using:

• Best of Sections
• Autoresponders
• Related Links
• Best of Posts
• Repost Old Content

The increasing popularity of social networking sites and other forms of communication, including text messaging and cell phone use, are beginning to impact the effectiveness of email marketing, according to a new report from JupiterResearch.

In the report, titled “The Social and Portable Inbox: Optimizing E-mail Marketing in the New Era of Communication Tools,” researchers found emerging forms of communication are reducing the use of email.

Twenty-two percent of email users said they use social networking sites instead of email, with more saying they have used instant messaging, text messaging, and cell phones instead.

“Consumers’ confidence in e-mail has become shaken by irrelevant communications and high message frequency, which are top drivers of subscribers’ churn and channel skepticism,” explained David Daniels, Vice President, Research Director and Lead Analyst of the report for JupiterResearch.

“People receive such a high volume of e-mail that they are unable to pay attention to every message. It is so important for marketers to be relevant and succinct when they send messages to consumers’ inboxes.”

In 2007, 51 percent of email users said email had led to at least one online purchase, and 47 percent said the same for off-line purchases. In 2008, the number of email users declined to 44 percent for online purchases and 41 percent for off-line purchases.

“Marketers need to be aware that consumers are using other forms of communication and must ensure their strategy adapts to consumers’ changing behavior,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch

f there’s ever been a time when email marketers need to be on the ball with their communication, it’s right now. Consumers are harder to part from their cash and the competition for sales is hotter than ever. However, dotMailer’s annual benchmark study, “Hitting the Mark”, shows that the overall email marketing performance of the U.K.’s leading retailers is actually down on last year.

Email communications from Britain’s largest high street retailers were analyzed by dotMailer to see which company delivered the most effective campaign. Despite increased competition for share of consumers’ dwindling spending power, overall performance was disappointingly down on last year’s findings.

Marks and Spencer and jewelers H.Samuel jointly topped the leader board for the first time with scores of 81, moving up from fourth and 15th positions respectively. In second place came Ethical Superstore followed by Argos. Last year’s top placed store Topshop ranks joint fourth with John Lewis this year with 78 points.

Somerfield and H&M jointly replace Lidl at the bottom of the dotMailer’s leader board with just 48 points, followed by Schuh and Tog24.

The study revealed that basic elements of the retailers’ campaigns were letting them down. Incredibly, nearly three-quarters failed to personalize messages in the opening salutation, and over half neglected to incorporate any viral or forwarding element. Amazingly, just two retailers out of the 41 analyzed included social network links.  Enabling emails to be shared with a recipient’s network of friends not only increases already low forwarding-rates, but can help boost mailing lists as more people are exposed to a campaign.

Perhaps more crucially, some email messages were prone to be mistaken for spam, reflected in the overall low average scores in the technical category of ‘Renderability and Coding’. According to the study, as many as 19% of email recipients will assume email that hasn’t rendered properly in their inbox to be spam, making it essential that the coding and design of templates be tested in all relevant email clients.

“In the current economic climate and with marketing budgets being tightened, companies can reap dividends by focusing on their email marketing strategies and execution,” said Tink Taylor, dotMailer’s Business Development Director.

“Email offers a highly cost-effective, trackable and accountable way of communicating with prospects and customers. Spending more time investing in email best practice will reward retailers both now and long after the recession is over.”

All the areas highlighted above can easily be improved upon, resulting in better deliverability, open rates, click-throughs and, ultimately, improved ROI. If the recipient of an email can easily answer the following three questions, concludes the report, then the email marketer’s battle is already half won:

- Who is it from?

- What’s in it for me?

- What do I do next?

I’d like to add a fourth question:

- Who else do I know that would benefit from this?

dotMailer’s full report can be downloaded for free (registration required).

A recent study from Ball State University, the Email Marketer’s Club and ExactTarget found that only 13% of email marketers are integrating social media into their campaigns. However, 46% of them intend to do so this year.

The study surveyed 351 email marketers and researched the habits of large brands like Carmex, TripAdvisor, and Papa John’s. Each of these has been successful in their efforts to include social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Digg in their campaigns.

“While the global reach, rapid adoption and high engagement found in social media have email marketers salivating at the potential these environments offer to engage with customers and prospects, the real challenge is how best to facilitate meaningful interactions,” says Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy.

Giving users some variety is probably a smart choice for starters. That’s what Carmex does for example.

“We want visitors to share the experience with their friends, but we don’t want to force them to use a channel they are uncomfortable with,” said Paul Woelbing, president of Carma Labs, the maker of Carmex. “By offering visitors choices, we are learning a lot about the dynamics of integrating email, social media and text messaging – namely that they complement each other very well.”

Still, users may not be so high on the idea of letting brands into their social media hang out sites. “Consumers are reluctant to invite marketers into social environments, and this is because they don’t want to see the channel overrun with irrelevant commercial messages,” says Stewart. “However, marketers who are able to align their messaging with the distinct mindset of consumers engaging in social networks are posting positive results and building a quality following in these environments.”

This reminds me of something Hulu CEO Jason Kilar talked about in his keynote at ad:tech. He discussed effective magazine ads, which people don’t even realize are ads.

On another related note, there is an interesting aricle at the SimplyCast blog discussing specifically the integration of Facebook into email marketing campaigns. You may find this worth looking at. Also, ExactTarget actually has a social email solution it just unveiled at ad:tech called Social Forward.

Email marketing is good for business growth – when done properly. One of the best parts about email marketing is that it keeps you in regular contact with customers. It keeps you fresh in their minds. That is why your list is so important.

“Building your list is even more important in a tough economic environment,” writes Gail Goodman of Entrepreneur.com. “Your list is your pre-qualified target audience. They know you and your products and services, and they’ve bought from you in the past.”

“They’re an easier sell and a source of referrals, she adds. “That’s why email marketing is still the most effective tool in your marketing mix. For fractions of a penny per person, you can stay in touch with your best customers. So when they’re ready to buy — even in a down economy — they’ll think of your business first.”

Last summer, it was noted that social networking was significantly impacting emailmarketing efforts. Eventually, a study found that social networks had actually become more popular than email. That is why it can pay to integrate your social media marketing with your email marketing.

“In order to increase sales, small businesses want to keep existing customers while creating more sales ops – email helps small businesses doing that,” Steve Adams, VP of Marketing with email marketing company Campaigner told me in a recent interview for SmallBuzinessNewz.

“Although social media marketing is becoming more and more popular, recent studies are finding that people still like and want to receive emails,” he said. “For example a study by Epsilon and ROI Research entitled “Beyond the Click: The Indirect Value of Email” found that 84 percent of recipients liked receiving email from companies with whom they’ve subscribed to their e-newsletters. Another stat to note is from an Aberdeen report, which states that email marketing is ranked the number one recessionary marketing tool. Although there are other marketing techniques gaining popularity, email marketing is here to stay, especially for small businesses.”

Tips

- Track you campaigns. A recent study from eROI showed that 18% of email marketers in the US were not tracking their campaigns. Things that should be tracked include delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and conversion rate. More on this here.

- Consider spam filters. Spam filters are a hurdle all email marketers have to clear, and this even includes legitimate ones. Just because you are a legitimate email marketer, this does not mean you will make it through the filters your audience and their service providers have set up. For some specific tips on dealing with this, refer to my SBN article from last year.

- Pay special attention to subject lines and from lines. These things are critical to your open rate. A clear and familiar from line is important simply for the trust factor. People want to know who they are getting mail from before they open it. The subject line is where it gets a little trickier. You have to create subject lines that make people care enough to open it. More on subject lines.

- Provide quality content. Keep your content interesting and relevant to your audience. Think about why they would have signed up to receive messages from you in the first place.

- Consider the timing of messages. Timing can be a factor in a successful campaign. Not only marketing based on events or holidays, but also the time of day. If you are targeting an audience in the UK, for example, but you are sending from the US, you need to take time zones into consideration, and depending on who you are hoping to reach, try to get your messages sent at the right time of day. Are you hoping to catch people at the office? Get your messages out early. Are you hoping to get them after work? Maybe later is fine.

It doesn’t end with these tips. There are tons of tools and applications that can help you optimize your email marketing campaigns. A lot of it requires you to use your head though. Get to know your audience, and try to judge what will keep them engaged.

eMarketer points to a recent study from return path, which shows that email marketers may be having more trouble getting their emails delivered than they realize. According to the firm, over 20% of mailings in the US and Canada are not reaching their intended inboxes.

We’re talking about permission-based email marketing here. Return Path says:

- Such messages only reached  79.3% of inboxes during the first half of 2009.

- 3.3% of those messages go to “junk” or “bulk” folders and

- 17.4% are not delivered at all, with no hard bounce message or other notification of non-delivery.

“Many marketers aren’t even aware that one-fifth of their emails are never reaching the inbox,” said George Bilbrey, President, co-founder, Return Path. “In many cases, marketers are seeing “delivered” metrics that repeatedly show a 95% to 98% delivery rate. Unfortunately, many ESPs and marketers have developed the belief that whatever emails aren’t bouncing have successfully reached the inbox. That’s just not true, as these numbers show. Marketers need to examine their current deliverability stats, and remember that hard bounces aren’t the only emails that aren’t reaching your subscribers.”

Return Path says taht US deliverability rates are a little better Than Canadas, with 82% and 75% respectively. Service providers of course play significant roles in deliverability. Return Path calls Gmail the most stringent US-based service provider for permissioned marketers to reach.

A recent study from LinkedIn and Harris Interactive showed that only 8% of advertisers and consumers think Twitter is a “very effective” promotion tool. Still, it is the most linked to social network in email marketing campaigns.

WebProNews recently reported on that based on research from Email Data Source. In the comments to that article, someone asked, “Can anyone point me to some good (or not good) examples of Twitter links in emails?”

Another reader responded, “It is pretty simple actually, the links go to the profiles asking people to follow the sender…The main idea is to use Twitter as destination from any possible media: blogs, other social media, email and even stationary.”

Another reader commented, “Once you have someone following you, you have a captured audience. The trick is then keeping them by posting Tweets that are relevant to your followers and help develop your brand and provide a mechanism to engage with your customer or prospective customers.”

Twitter Drives the Sale For You

I like this story shared by Shéa Bennett at the Twittercism blog. He talks about seeking more information on a brand (Graze) via his Twitter friends, and how Twitter itself ultimately led to his purchase from that brand. And that is without any intervention at all from the brand itself.

Bennet says he remembered a friend talking about Graze, but couldn’t remember who. He figured he’d tap into his Twitter network and ask.

“Graze hadn’t been involved at all in that process – although I’m sure if I’d approached them directly on Twitter we could have worked something out – but I was already pretty excited,” says Bennett.

“The responses to my opening enquiry were overwhelming positive about Graze. You can’t buy this kind of PR – you do it simply by having a great product, and a great system,” he says. “But what actually made the sale was Twitter itself. It put all the pieces together.”

This is an example of how Twitter can help your brand whether you are actively participating in it or not. However, if you are actively participating, you will have a better handle on your brand’s reputation, and won’t have to rely on the general public to drive the sales to you. You can do some facilitating on your own.

More marketers are planning on shifting their media spending budgets to digital during the economic downturn, according to a second quarter survey by Round2 Communications.

Email marketing is one area where spending is set to increase with 40 percent of respondents planning to do so, while half expect their amount of spending to remain the same and just 10 percent plan a decrease.

Nearly a third (31.3%) of marketers plan to increase spending on interactive advertising while 52.1 percent say their investment will remain the same and 16.7 percent plan a decrease.

Nearly a quarter (23.5%) of marketers indicate their spending on search advertising will increase and almost 60 percent say their budgets will remain the same.

The most likely areas to see a cut in spending due to the economy is print with 37.5 percent of marketers planning to do so, followed by TV (21.4%), radio (8.9%) and outdoor (5.4%).

When it comes to an economic recovery, almost 60 percent of marketers expect it in 2010, while nearly one-fifth believed it would happen this year and 17.3 percent thought recovery would come in 2011.

Overall, 50 percent of marketers said they expected their expenditures to return to peak levels in 2011 and less than one – third thought 2010 would bring them back to their previous budgets.

It is an interesting time for email marketing right now. Though it is still a quite effective medium for marketers, there are many challenges to deal with. This was the subject of a session moderated by David Daniels of Forrester Research at the Shop.org summit in Las Vegas this week.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for email marketing campaigns? Comment here.

Email contributes to the overload of information that Internet users face on a daily basis. The web is not as simple as it used to be. People have more information coming at them than ever before, be it from social networks, RSS feeds, email, or whatever. Spam continues to plague inboxes (not that these other channels are immune), and that complicates things even more. Now add to that, the increasing use of the mobile web. One may assume that social networks are taking over or even replacing email, but one would be wrong.

Email is not dying because of social media. “Email is still a key tool in social communication,” says Daniels. “Understanding audience engagement is key.”

Email portability adoption is increasing. For example, just this week Google launched email syncing for Gmail to smartphones (meaning iPhone users can get their gmail accounts synced between their iPhone and their PC). This will make it easier for iPhone users to keep up with their accounts on the go.

Daniels suggests using SMS (text messaging) as an opt-in point for email subscriptions, as well as rendering and supporting the call to action.

Considering that people have their phones with them pretty much at all times, email marketers shouldn’t be overlooking mobile. Consider these stats that Daniels provides:

- 25% of email subscribers provide website recommendations
- 20% online buyers post on average 9 product reviews a year
- 77% of the online population find those reviews more useful than the info the company provides

While social media may not be replacing email, it’s obviously still growing rapidly. You may have heard that Facebook alone just surpassed the 300 million-user milestone a couple weeks ago. That’s close to the same amount of people that make up the entire population of the United States, to put that into perspective.

Many companies are utilizing social media and integrating it into their email marketing campaigns. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be doing the same. Incorporate Facebook pages, Twitter, and/or MySpace accounts into campaigns. You can further engage with customers, and in turn keep interest in your emails going.

The key is to stay relevant to users. According to Daniels, “relevance empowered” mailings deliver more top and bottom line improvement than broadcast. He gave a few recommendations for implementation:

- For one, become an advocate for change, and address your organization’s readiness to embrace it.

- Secondly, understand the value of subscribers, and focus on their behaviors.

- He says to make it easy for consumers to share info with a lot of people quickly, but to learn about specific social behaviors of customers before creating your social strategy.

- And last, but not least, to “test, test, test.”

I’ll add a couple of my own cents, and suggest that once your email campaign is integrated into social media, it becomes fair game for going viral and for being found in real-time searches. Essentially, your campaign can be taken from the inboxes of subscribers and expanded out onto the real-time web.

Email marketers shouldn’t fear social media. They should embrace it. Of course, campaigns will need to be compelling enough to get people to want to share them.