Email Marketing Blog

Email Marketing Best Practices and Advice for Marketers

Author: Net Atlantic Marketing

The New York Times Email Mistake: Can It Happen To You?

Posted by on in Industry News1 Comment

By now you probably know about the New York Times’ little email error on Wednesday, December 27. But if you don’t, here’s the nutshell: The Times sent a ‘Cancellation’ email to 8.6 million people, presumably every single one of their online email subscribers. The email was meant only for those who actually subscribe to the paper’s home delivery service.

First the Times claimed it was spam, then blamed their email service provider Epsilon, and finally fessed up; The Times did it themselves.

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Subscribers Want To Hear From You RIGHT NOW

Posted by on in Email Automation

When I subscribe to an organization’s email or mobile marketing communication it is at that very moment I am looking to engage in a meaningful relationship with that company. As soon as I type in my information and hit submit I immediately check my Blackberry or Gmail account to ensure my subscription went through and see what valuable piece of information that company has to share with me; whether it be an exclusive discount, an insightful whitepaper, or a simple message asking if I was sure I wanted to opt-in.

It is quite disappointing when I don’t see a message within minutes or even hours of
subscribing with at least a thank you for sharing what I consider to be my valuable personal information. My interest in whatever product I was curious about has quickly faded and usually I am on to the next organization that can provide me with comparable products or services. Although I like to think I am unique, I have to believe a lot of people have similar reactions when their subscription to a service goes unrecognized for an extended period of time.

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Innovation Surrounds Mass TLC’s unConference

Posted by on in Industry News

This past Friday I attended the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s Annual unConference at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. This conference has been one of the best annual events put on by the MassTLC, and has grown tremendously just in the last couple of years. Have you ever been to an “unConference”?

The minute I walked into the large meeting room where  introductory speeches were given, I immediately felt the presence of 500+ innovative  New England business leaders. Nearly everyone there carried an air of  confidence, energy, enthusiasm, and appeared to listen very carefully to what  the speaker had to say in his opening remarks. I quickly assessed that this unConference was going to be like no other conference I had been to before. And I was right!

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The Center Of Attention: Email as a Primary Source of Content

Posted by on in Content Marketing

What is The Future of Email Marketing?
By now you’ve heard the question: Is email a thing of the past? Social media is a major phenomenon in marketing, and the speculation abounds about how it will impact current online marketing methods.

Let’s answer this with a few questions of our own:

  • Has email made landing pages a thing of the past?
  • Have landing pages made websites a thing of the past?
  • Have websites made telephones a thing of the past?
  • Have telephones made storefronts a thing of the past?

You see where I’m going with this. We’ve all forecasted the decline of postcards, television ads, billboards, and every other type of advertising and marketing method based on what was new. Yet we still receive mail, drive past billboards, get phone calls, and dodge television ads every day. And every time, the new methods turned out to have drawbacks of their own that create new problems and opportunities.

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Grow Your Business by Getting to Know Your Customers

Posted by on in Marketing Strategy

What matters most to your customers?

If you want to know how to increase your business, just ask your customers. Asking for customer feedback is one of the most important elements of doing business. Developing lasting customer relationships and customer loyalty requires an understanding of their needs and the reasons behind their buying decisions.

Survey your customers and ask them what they expect from you, what features of your product or service they most enjoy, what they think about your customer service, and what you could improve.

Listen to your customers, discover their pain points, and bring innovative solutions to market to address their issues and challenges. Paying attention to what your customers are saying can give you better insights to what matters most to them and gives you multiple ways to engage with them and build stronger relationships.

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StrongMail On-Demand: The Benefits

Posted by on in Company News

Net Atlantic brings you enterprise email marketing with StrongMail On-Demand.

The Social Conversation: It’s About Listening

Posted by on in Social Media Marketing

Late last year, Dell computer opened its Social Media Listening Command Center at their headquarters outside of Austin, Texas. The listening room is just one of many social media marketing strategies that Dell is using. The company has a series of Facebook pages with user-generated content promoting its products; formal ways to incorporate customer-based suggestions into future product features; and a number of Twitter accounts they use to broadcast daily deals.

Other companies using social media sites like Twitter for business include Southwest Airlines who uses Twitter to inform their customers about deals, and Comcast who uses Twitter to resolve customer service issues.

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Social Media for Business: 5 Signs You Are Ready

Posted by on in Social Media Marketing

Does social media really matter to your business? How will you know?

Earlier this month, Ad Age Digital’s B.L. Ochman revealed that Less than half of the top 50 companies have social icons on their websites:

“Only 44% of the Fortune 50 have any social media icons on their home pages, and 60% hide their Twitter streams. Call Inspector Clouseau if you want to find the rest. Kind of amazing considering the prevalence of social buttons of all types all over the web.”

I’m stymied too. These market-making companies drive many commercial trends. What they do matters to you and me every day. They have an amazing opportunity to build relationships. Yet, you’d be surprised how few of them link to their social presence on their home pages.

General Electric probably helped you get ready for work this morning.  You pass hundreds of Ford cars, thousands of Goodyear tires  and dozens of Exxon/Mobil stations on your way there. You’ve got AT&T in your iPhone, Hewlett-Packard in your office, and Bank of America in your wallet. These companies all have a social media presence. But from their front pages, you’d never know it. What are they waiting for?

Cindy’s Diner, where I go to get the best coffee on the planet, is a brisk walk down one of the back streets. Cindy knows she needs to gain an advantage any way she can. So she has a website with the icons on it. She invites me to ‘Like’ her Facebook page, right there on her handwritten specials chalkboard. She asks for my email address when I purchase a muffin. She even puts a QR Code on the receipt.

She’s not waiting.

To be fair, Cindy’s business is a lot more nimble than a Fortune 50 company. She can decide whether or not to start tweeting, sharing, and blogging about coffee, muffins, and her business. She and a few employees can make regular updates and keep current. If she has a website, Cindy can copy and paste social media icons into her site using a content management system and it’s live.

To be fair, Cindy doesn’t have a board of directors, an IT department, a web oversight team, a legal division, or a branding agency. A Fortune 50 company can’t simply slap up a few icons because the marketing folks think it’s cool. Still, I have to wonder if they plan to integrate their social strategy more fully, if they’re still thinking about it, or if they’ve reached the point where they’ve decided against it – until social media starts to matter to them.

And when’s that?

Many companies are waiting “for social media to matter” to their business, without realizing it is up to them to make it matter. A robust social presence may matter to you if:

  • Your customers often make spur-of-the-moment decisions based on impressions, and not just a painstaking deliberative process.
  • Your customers are impressed by your brand’s reach and engagement, not just portfolio holdings, valuation and strategic partnerships.
  • Your customers have a relationship with their favorite brands that goes beyond awareness or loyalty – they achieve inclusion.
  • Your customers seek out information and reviews about your products from places other than just your website.
  • Your company holds a unique viewpoint on industry and technology trends that is worth listening to.

If any of these are true, you will benefit from social media, even if all it does is make you more accessible. Even if all you are doing is keeping up with competitors, at least your customers see you working to reach them in new ways. They see the Try. And with social media, as in all relationship-building efforts, the Try is what matters.

How can you keep your data safe at an ESP?

Posted by on in Email Servers & Security

The recent data breach at a well-known ESP has gotten a lot of press and attention.  Many large customers email lists were compromised including major retailers like Walgreens, Best Buy, Target as well as several financial institutions including US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and more.  Unfortunately this is not the first data breach that has happened to ESPs.  The last two years have seen some well publicized events of data compromise.  Many breeches have occurred by methods including spear-phishing (a series of targeted attacks and social engineering against a specific company in order to gain access to their data) and other more common security vulnerabilities.

Is your data safe at an ESP?  It depends on the ESP.  You should ask your ESP what security measures are in place.  You want to ask about things such as firewalls, intrusion detection mechanisms, software vulnerability patching practices, antivirus and antimalware programs (both in their data centers but also in their offices), encryption of backups, and staff security training.

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