Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices

Seven Tips for Effective Landing Pages

I wanted to point you to an article by Jeanne Jennings today on Effective Landing Pages. She starts off like this:

Great e-mail marketing doesn't involve e-mail alone. Usually, it also encompasses the Web pages people land on when they click through from the message to follow the call to action. You can get a great open rate and a very impressive CTR, but if the landing page doesn't carry the reader through to the goal, it's pointless.

Read the whole story here.....

Email Marketing Firm ExactTarget Debuts on Inc. 500 List

I just wanted to post this....frankly because we are really proud of this accomplishment and wanted to thank all of the employees who work so hard on behalf of our customers....and our customers who have never been shy about keeping us honest and providing lots & lots of great ideas and features that have made our products and company so strong. Sincerely, Thank you.

Aug. 23, 2006--On-demand email service provider ExactTarget (http://www.exacttarget.com) today was named to the 2006 Inc. 500, a list of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. ExactTarget made its debut on the Inc. 500 with a ranking of 56, meaning from 2002 to 2005, ExactTarget was the 56th fastest growing private company in the country. read the whole release here....

Database Marketing in any business

Database Marketing works in every business..... How do you build the hottest club in Manhattan? Build a database. Here it from Club founder Noah Tepperberg as reported in Forbes....

...While Tepperberg logged at least six nights a week on the town (and has a gravelly voice to show for it), each outing laid the groundwork for something far bigger. "By the time we opened Marquee, we had a huge network," he says. "Almost all club owners boast a database. But we herded our crowd from club to club for years. We had a bona fide following."

Read the whole story here....

Dave Berlind Gets Spammed

This is the highlight of Dave's Post on this:

"...So I asked how was it that I ended up with the newsletter. Eventually, Daniel Seaman Esq. (he included the "Esq." part, not me), president of Loyalty Solutions, wrote me an email that, amongst other things, said:

….David [Swanson] mentioned that you were interested in understanding how your name got included on our list. I can tell you several things about the list on which your name appeared:

It was a list of insurance company contacts that was recently developed.
This was not a purchased list…..
…..The lists we use are developed from a variety of sources: conferences and trade shows, partner relationships for co-branding and cross marketing, registrations and subscriptions from our website, and some targeted development work undertaken by our operations team. I'm afraid I'm not able to tell you specifically how your name was in that database, as clearly it did not belong. "

The whole experience is comical in a sad tragic sort of way. Read the entire post here....

Is this the Future?

How to build your list part 2

Thanks for the comments. Yes the offer is a big step up from the 'fishbowl' type of opt in. On the other hand I'm always amazed how many cards I put into a fishbowl and never hear anything.

I'm guessing I'm not winning any free lunches....

But what a lost opportunity. I wouldn't ever condone adding someone to a list just because they put their card in a bowl.....but....

I do think that you should still take advantage of this opportunity to try and begin a relationship.

Wouldn't one email be appropriate?

"Dear Chris,

We really appreciate your business. Thank you for having lunch with us. I'm sorry that you didn't win the free lunch this week. That honor went to (insert name & picture).

We do have a weekly email that offers a lot of opportunity not only to save money but also to place orders online so you don't have to stand "in-line".

Would you like to subscribe? Just check the box and hit submit....."

This kind of email is entirely appropriate. I'm not adding Chris to any list and will never email him again without his permission...but at the same time, I think Chris would appreciate the opportunity to know what happened in the giveaway...and to have the opportunity to develop a better relationship with my restaurant...or barbershop....or national home improvement chain...or newspaper.

Come to think of it I can't think of any circumstances where this wouldn't be appropriate.

How to build your list

You know, sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Here is the Qudoba across from my office. Simple box with a nice offer for a Free Lunch. This thing is full every day.

Great Marketing Spoof from YouTube