Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  You have written a couple of books on email marketing?
Wilson: One, called The E-Mail Marketing Handbook.
Mike: In that book, you tell people how to get started from the ground up. So, a question to you: What are people doing wrong with their current email marketing activities that they could easily correct?
Wilson: Before I comment on that, let me go back and make one more comment on spam. You had asked about the future. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  Royal Bank of Scotland, Gannett Newspapers, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and PRNewswire as well as a host of firms utilizing Listrak to maximize their permission based opt-in email marketing efforts.
I'd like to better understand your firm's current or planned use of permission based email in its marketing mix. There may be a place for Listrak in your operational mix in order to inprove [sic] the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Can you provide the contact name and number?
Please call on 717.669.8502. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | A lot of people use email marketing to send out offers, like 50 percent off or something like that. It is appropriate when they click on it that they go to a landing page. Do this rather than sending them to your home page, because it can be confusing for them to figure out where to go. If you have a landing page, then you are taking them down the road to making a sale. Then you are avoiding the possible objections on what it does, how it works, how much it costs, what is the offer, what is the shipping policy and what is your guarantee on return. | | So, a question to you: What are people doing wrong with their current email marketing activities that they could easily correct?
Wilson: Before I comment on that, let me go back and make one more comment on spam. You had asked about the future. I think in the future commercial email marketers, like myself, are going to have to pay into some certified sender program, and certified senders will be put on white lists. I think that is what the future is going to be. That is why it is so important for Internet marketers and emailers to make sure we are scrupulous about how we send out emails. | | There has been a lot of talk about it today, not only with email marketing but search engine landing pages, advertising campaigns and so on. If you could give an overview, what are some issues with landing pages? What big issues should people watch for?
Wilson: Well, first of all, you need to have a landing page for each advertising campaign, so when someone comes to the landing page, they see the wording and the graphics; that is the reason that they clicked on it to begin with. Here is a crude example. I am from California, and we have a governor who works out. | | I use the word email marketing in my newsletter, and that happens to send out a red flag to Spam Assassin and other word-based filters. So having a habeas heading helps, but to have it work well, it has to have momentum and be seen all over the internet as a mark of approval and certification of someone that is a legitimate and ethical emailer.
Mike: It has to be enforced. In other words, the habeas company has to be filing lawsuits.
Wilson: They will have to defend their trademarks and copyrights vigorously. | | Mike: Let's get back to your e-book on email marketing. What is the title of it again?
Wilson: The E-Mail Marketing Handbook.
Mike: The E-Mail Marketing Handbook is something that people can find on wilsonweb.com?
Wilson: Right.
Mike: In there, do you tell people how to get started?
Wilson: Yes. One of the things I advocate strongly for businesses and organizations is to start a newsletter even though you are small and just getting started. The reason is this: Let's say you put a lot of effort into getting people to your site, but your conversion rate for what you sell is 1 or 2 percent. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  Sterne: "World Wide Web Marketing," "Customer Service on the Internet," and the latest one is "Web Metrics," but of particular interest is "Email Marketing and Advanced email marketing."
Mike: Okay, great. Let's talk about email marketing. What do you see as the big trends here in the next -- let's talk short term here -- three years? What do you see happening? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  Although there is no formal arrangement with AOL to recognize Relemail certification, having this certification status certainly helps support your contention that you are an honest email marketing firm.
In all, there are a number of important benefits to being email sender certified, which is why companies who are engaged in email marketing should look closely at these services.
Don't take my word on everything I've said here; do your own research. Check out Relemail, read up on the study or survey your own users and find out what they think about email privacy. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  REPPED: Mike: Hello everyone, this is Mike Adams welcoming Debbie Weil, one of the most widely-read and -respected authors on email marketing, copywriting, B2B communications, and I'll let her tell you what else. Thank you for joining us today, Debbie.
Weil: Thank you, Mike! What a nice introduction.
Mike: Well, you're quite welcome. Could you give us a little more information about what you do?
Weil: Well, I'm probably best known for publishing an e-newsletter, which is of course a form of email marketing, called WordBiz Report. It's read by about 15,000 subscribers in over 80 countries. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  I do want to make money with email marketing, but I want to do it without upsetting anyone and without violating any legal or integrity issues. I really want to do it right, and I believe I can do it right." He asked people to hold up where they stand. His point was that if you're not more toward the integrity, you're doing long-term damage to this medium. You could be killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
The work I do with my clients has always been "opt in." Ever since I started, I've always been a proponent for opt in, and I continue to be, even though it's not the law now. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  These data point out that people are increasingly skeptical of self-published email privacy policies," said ReleMail founder and email marketing veteran Mike Adams. "They generally don't believe companies' own privacy statements, but they do pay attention to independent certification of email practices."
The survey was taken in conjunction with this week's launch of Relemail, the first email privacy monitoring service available to ecommerce directors, email marketing directors, small businesses and any online organization looking to build trust with customers and potential subscribers. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | Even the ones who are taking on email marketing are still slow to implement even basic CAN-SPAM compliance. You may know that we did a study of CAN-SPAM compliance, and there's one statistic that I'd like you to comment on that I find fascinating -- 51 percent of the emails sent by more than 1,000 companies, including many Fortune 500 companies, had no working unsubscribe link. How do you account for something like that?
Sterne: The legal department is asleep at the wheel -- to be CAN-SPAM compliant is not difficult. It's not rocket science. It won't affect the brand. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | Lots of people are seeing your offer, but they aren't handing over their email addresses and giving you permission to engage them in an email marketing conversation. This study helps explain why that's happening (and how you can improve your subscription results).
Why do email subscribers and internet users have such strong beliefs about email privacy? According to the Relemail study, it's because 87 percent have received spam that they believe resulted from a company selling their email address out the back door. | | Once you have been certified, you can display the Relemail logo on your website right underneath your email subscription form, so that end users can click a link and independently verify that your email practices have been certified and meet the highest ethical standards that have ever been proposed for email marketing.
Speaking of best practices, I'm obligated to mention that I am the founder of Relemail. I created it out of frustration in seeing the email community fail to come up with realistic anti-spam solutions even after years of negotiation and bickering among the top ISPs. | | In all, there are a number of important benefits to being email sender certified, which is why companies who are engaged in email marketing should look closely at these services.
Don't take my word on everything I've said here; do your own research. Check out Relemail, read up on the study or survey your own users and find out what they think about email privacy. No matter how you look at it, I am sure you will find evidence to support the same conclusions I've reached here. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | Weil: Well, I'm probably best known for publishing an e-newsletter, which is of course a form of email marketing, called WordBiz Report. It's read by about 15,000 subscribers in over 80 countries. I also sell information products through the WordBiz stores. These products are special reports on topics related to marketing with e-newsletters, more recently business blogging and so forth. I also offer consulting services and audio conferences, and I'm doing a new interactive teleseminar series. | | Mike: I think a lot of people who are involved in email marketing or web marketing tend to forget that it really is about words. The internet is primarily a medium of words. It's easy to get lost in all the glitzy technology and video and forget how important it is to get the right message across. Is this a common theme with the people you work with?
Weil: Well, I think it's actually perhaps an agreement at this point that the internet is a text medium. It started out that way, for those of you who can remember that dark background with a blinking green text, you know, those old computers. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  Merck seems to be everywhere, with drug reps, consultants, marketing people, email marketing people, scientists, lobbyists and so on. It seems impossible to go anywhere in society without running into somebody who works for Merck.
At the same time, I've never met a person who worked for Merck who wasn't a really interesting and capable person. Every person I've met has been intelligent and appeared to be honest. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | Mike: That's great, because a lot of companies out there want to get into email marketing, and they just don't know where to start. They don't know where to get started, and they can really work with you to get that going, right?
Jennings: Yes, and a lot of people who have gotten started have had a level of success but are having trouble getting to the next level. That's another great place where I can kind of step in. With some clients, it's a one or two month project. I'm in and out. With other clients, it's an ongoing relationship that just depends on what they need. | | I got to the point where I said, "Why don't I do a newsletter that sort of has the best of the stuff I've seen on the Internet pertaining to email marketing?"
It was sort of twofold. For one, I thought this would give me a really organized resource to use to use to develop an archive. Also, it would give other people a resource to use. Obviously, I'm not the only person looking for this stuff. That was really how it started.
So when I am on the internet, doing research for clients and myself, I take note of things that I find interesting. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  Here's the danger: If they cannot agree on a set of standards, eventually there will be enough pressure from financial institutions, internet users and legitimate email marketing companies to get Congress to pass new laws mandating some kind of sender certification or authentication system. That, my friends, is what we don't want. Again, I think the government won't do it right. It will be very bureaucratic, costly, delayed and inadequate. We do not want the government to come and regulate this medium. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  And I think that's kind of emerging in the email marketing industry. It's okay if you don't want to absolutely, positively guarantee it gets through but you want to do everything you can. You start to take on and utilize this sort of reputation and other services; things that dramatically increase the likelihood that it's going to get through. I think that is definitely the kind of a payment approach that is emerging. I'm not sure that a penny per email or a postage stamp model is going to take off. | | We have a long-term plan of how to get him to an Amazon-type level of sophistication in terms of email marketing. We're only halfway there because the person who I interface with has multiple jobs. He's been managing the website, designing and putting up product photos on the web. He's doing lots of other things.
A couple of hours each month, he works on two separate email programs that go out. I work with him a few hours every month on each campaign. We work on how to take it to the next level, whether it's doing split testing subject lines or segmenting the list or those kinds of things. | | As you mentioned, we're positioned as one of the leading high-end, self-service email marketing technology companies out there. We primarily provide clients with what's called ASP, which are basically web-based solutions. You can do all of your creative endeavors, list management, distribution and managing your reporting online.
What we provide are some of the most advanced technology features out there for marketers. Things like using an ATI to integrate and sync up information with their CRM databases and sales force automation databases. | | Our clients have the capabilities in-house to run our programs as opposed to using an agency approach where they outsource email marketing programming services. We provide you the know-how and in-depth customer support. Basically, our clients are outsourcing the technology, but running their program themselves.
Mike: Is there a consulting component to any of this? For example, helping customers decide how they might want to segment their list, or what triggers they might want to put in place?
McDonald: Yes, absolutely. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | I know you have an MBA and a lot of experience in email marketing, but how did get started with The Jennings Report?
Jennings: I actually got into the online world back in the 1980s. When I graduated with my MBA, I was fascinated with online. I felt like there was so much information in the world, and online seemed to me to be the best way to organize and present it. I love using things like Dialog, where you can search through databases of content and find exactly what you need. I went to work for CompuServe, which, at that time, was the largest online service in the country. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | If you say you're going to send somebody a single newsletter a month on best practices in email marketing, and then you start sending a couple of other promotional-oriented emails or three newsletters a month, you've broken that trust at some point. They might unsubscribe or complain. Basically, you've got to manage those expectations from the beginning. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts | | I'm an email marketing consultant and I work with medium and large companies helping them make their email and online efforts more effective. You can get more information on those services at my website, www.jeannejennings.com.
Mike: You consult with companies. Is it on an hourly basis or a project basis? How does that work?
Jennings: It really depends. Mostly I do project work, although sometimes if I'm in an advisory role, the hourly model makes more sense. I really try to tailor the costs and services. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |  What are they going to cover in email marketing courses?
Fleming: They're going to cover basic things -- like HTML versus text, how to acquire email lists, how to clean them, how to use those databases and how to collect demographic, psychographic and geographic information and coordinate that into an actionable plan. They will also cover newsletter marketing and affiliate marketing through email.
Mike: What do you think are the big trends in spam? What's happening out there?
Fleming: Prior to the CAN-SPAM Act, there were a lot of state laws that actually made spam illegal. |
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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.
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