The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part IV This one could also be entitled “What Are The Bloggers Smoking?” Reports from last week’s Blog Business Summit like this one are starting to filter in (pun slightly intended). This one gets a big yawn from me, even more so than the other times I’ve posted on this subject, here, here, and here. I’m as much of a blogger and a believer in blogs and RSS as the next guy — maybe even more so — but honestly, people, blogs are going to replace email? I’d like to address a few critical points here head on, although a large part of me doesn’t even want to dignify yet another…
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Everyone's a Direct Marketer, Part II
Everyone’s a Direct Marketer, Part II (If you missed the first post in this series, it’s here.) So, all companies are now direct marketers — their web sites and email lists make it so, they can’t effectively reach their fragmented audience without it, and consumer permission demands it. Why is this new to some companies and not others, and what lessons can companies who are new at it learn from traditional direct marketers? First, the quick answer — it’s new because it’s being driven by the new technologies the Internet has brought us in the past 10 years. Those technologies have opened up the possibility for 1:1 communication between any company and its customers that was previously unaffordable to many…
Doing its Part
Doing its Part Fred had a good posting on spam today, riffing on a New York Times article that is very “doom and gloom” on spam and how it’s taking over the world. I’ll buy the Times’ argument that there’s an increasing amount of spam out there these days, but as with Fred, I still maintain, as I did in this earlier posting, that we’re out of crisis mode and are on the path to resolution as improved filtering technology and false-positive identification services trickle down to broader usage. What I think is interesting, though is the amount of criticism that the CAN-SPAM legislation is getting, including in this article from the Times. It’s not a perfect law — what…
The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part III
The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part III Now it’s Groove Chairman Ray Ozzie saying that email is toast, since his kids use IM as their preferred channel, relegating email to something to be avoided since it’s only from parents or teachers. Um, ok. What about bosses and clients and colleagues? You may not want to hear from them, either (especially that pesky boss), but I’m still struggling with the argument that because kids aren’t addicted to the medium, it will surely die. Kids eventually grow up and do things differently than they did when they were kids. Perhaps email is one of those things you have to grow into when life isn’t (regretfully) just about chatting…
Everyone’s a Direct Marketer, Part I
Everyone’s a Direct Marketer, Part I I had breakfast a few weeks back with John Greco, the new CEO of the Direct Marketing Assocation, and was telling him why I felt it was essential that interactive marketing be included in the DMA’s mainstream mission and not regarded as separate. The substance of my argument was that the Internet has turned every company into a direct marketer, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, and whether they care to act like one or not. I was happy that John agreed with me! I’m going to write a three-part posting on this topic. First topic: Why is this happening? 1. The mechanics are now ubiquitous. Every company’s…
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part III
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part III My original posting singing the praises of VOIP and Vonage in particular (for those of you who haven’t tried Voice-Over-IP, it’s still working great and unbeliebaly cheaper than traditional phone service) was met with a criticism by my colleague Tom Bartel, who said Vonage in particular didn’t allow him to keep his particular phone number. This is something that varies carrier by carrier, area code by area code. So Tom tried an alternative service in Colorado called Lingo. So far, he seems to be having the same positive experience that we are in NYC.
Email Marketing 101
Email Marketing 101 We just published a book! Sign me Up! A marketer’s guide to creating email newsletters that build relationships and boost sales is now available on Amazon.com. The book is authored by me and my Return Path colleagues Mike Mayor, Tami Forman, and Stephanie Miller. What’s it about? – At its core, the book is a very practical how-to guide. Any company — large or small — can have a great email newsletter program. They’re easy, they’re cheap, and when done well, they’re incredibly effective. – This book helps you navigate the basics of how to get there, covering everything from building a great list, to content and design, to making sure the emails reach your customers’ inboxes…
Wait – A Closed Environment Isn’t the Be All End All?
Wait – A Closed Environment Isn’t the Be All End All? Today’s announcement that AOL will be improving its web-based email access for members and opening a free version of the service for non-members in 2005 is a quiet cry of “uncle.” What’s amazing isn’t the announcement so much as how long it took for AOL to get there. What will this do to the email landscape? Not much, in my view. It’s too little, too late, to mean much of anything.
The Rumors of Email's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part II
The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part II Fred beat me to it. There was an interesting article floating around yesterday about how Korea, which is one of the cutting edge nations in terms of technology usage, is finding that younger people prefer electronic communications like SMS text messaging and IM to email. Fred says he sees that trend here in his teenage kids as well. It will be interesting to see how this develops. It may be over the long haul that more personal communication happens over SMS and IM, but I’m still a believer in email for more formal business communications, any longer form note, and distribution of content or marketing that is best served…
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part II
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part II Great news for fans of Vonage and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services. Today, the The Wall Street Journal (that link may only work for a week or so) reported that FCC Chairman Michael Powell just drove a successful vote to declare VOIP an interstate service, exempt from state regulation and really paving the way for much smoother and broader adoption. I’ve received a number of comments on my earlier posting which sang the praises of Vonage and VOIP, and apparently not everyone has had the same positive experience as we’ve had with the service. But it’s still going strong for us!
Gmail – I Don’t Get It, Part II
Gmail – I Don’t Get It, Part II Back in June, I blogged about Google’s new Gmail service, how I didn’t understand the fuss, and how its features would ultimately be replicated and true usership stalled at a couple million. I stand by those assertions (just look at what Yahoo, Hotmail, and Lookout have done to the landscape since then), but my company Return Path published some data today that’s interesting on this topic. We run the largest Email Forwarding and Email Change of Address service around, so our data on email switching is pretty solid — we’ve had about 16 million consumers register a change of email with us in total, and about 25,000 new ones come in every…