Tip: Timing Newsgroup Posting to Optimize Results

There is no doubt that our audience is on many very diverse newsgroups such as Yahoo! Groups, AOL Message Boards, Linkedin Groups, Facebook Groups, etc. Some groups have thousands of active subscribers. Many service providers for these groups will send an email whenever a new post is added, either with a summary or the full message. This is an essential way for the service provider to drive traffic back to the site or to sell ads. Most services will send a daily consolidated email with all posts from the previous day. For message heavy and well read groups, consolidated emails are very popular, so people do not get bombarded with lots of message all day long.

If you take a look at the timestamps from this type of consolidated emails, you would notice that daily consolidated emails from Linkedin and Yahoo! Groups usually come at around the same time every day. This is most likely true for all such services since they are sent automatically on a regular schedule.

Being the top post for this type of email has many benefits. Obviously, the top 2 or 3 posts get the most attention. In addition, for LinkedIn, see the example in the figure (click the image to see the larger version), you will see that the poster name for the first post even appear in the subject line!

If we are building awareness and traffic using newsgroups in popular and high volume newsgroups, the trick is to time your posting so your post appears on the top. The exact method is slightly different for different services.

For example, for linkedin, the latest post appears on the top, and the rest are listed in reverse chronological order, therefore, you would want to time your posting right before the email deployment time.

On the other hand, for Yahoo! Group, posts are listed chronologically for the day before. So if you post at 12:01am on Monday (make sure you take into account the time zone!), you will be the top message for Tuesday.

Try it out, experiment, and let me know how this works out for you!

Blogger Tip: How to add "Email Subscription Form"

Looking for a way to collect emails from blogger site visitors? Here are some good source I found:

• Feedblitz.com: This is a free (ad supported) service that enables publishers to collect subscribers and send emails for free.
  
• Feedburner.com (now part of Google): Primarily used to send new articles with a very light 'delivered by' footer, ability to export subscriber email addresses.
  

Here are a couple of nice posts on this subject: "how to add Email Subscription Form using Feedburner" and "Add RSS/Email subscription in Blogger".

Separately, Google added the "Subscribe to" feature which is different, it currently only supports 3 RSS readers: Google, Bloglinks, and Netvibes, and there is no email support.

eMarketer: 54% of Retailer still do not test email subject line

Personally, I am now getting about 2 emails a week from Amazon, more than one per week from Costco and Target. This is probably two to three times the normal frequency, it's probably the combination or final holiday push and desperation during tough economic condition. They are definitely trying harder, unfortunately, I don't think many of them are hitting the sweet spots yet, at least for me. What about for you?

Obviously, the sender's FROM address (both email and display name parts) is crucial in determining the open and response rates. Recipients needs to trust and feel they have a relationship to even consider opening the email.

After that, the subject line is the key. Much more important than time of day or day of week in most of the emails I have tried. Changing a couple of key words can have huge impact on open rate AND response rate. Subject lines set the expectation of what's inside the email. You can have a very provocative subject line to get people open the email, but if people feel they are cheated or if the email did not meet people's expectation, the click-to-open ratio could be much worse. This would hurt the long term relationship with the user.

Different subject lines can have huge swing in different age groups and achieve plus/minus 50% in overall response. Is it too much work for 54% of the retailers to do?

Sources:
eMarketer: E-Mail Marketers Get in the Spirit (11/26/2008)

eMarketer: Pitching Cars Online in Tough Times

The economic is getting tough very quickly and broadly. Everyone is cutting but and focus on efficiency. Email finally being recognized again as an effective and efficient channel. Even the dying Car makers/car dealers are still expecting grow their ad spending online.

Sources:
eMarketer: Pitching Cars Online in Tough Times (11/21/2008)

eMarketer: Top online markting channels

According to eMarketer, Online retailers worldwide surveyed in July and August 2008 by E-Consultancy and R.O.EYE said that e-mail was second only to paid search when it came to driving high volume. The sample size was relatively small, at 241 online retailers. However, the results are in line with similar surveys. Nearly four out of 10 search engine advertisers worldwide surveyed in January 2008 by Radar Research for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said e-mail marketing yielded the best ROI of any tactic.


Lower Email Open Rates

MailerMailer said that some industries had higher open rates for their marketing e-mail, with banking/finance, religious/spiritual, government and telecommunications having more success than other verticals.

Tip: Shorter subject lines Perform Better

According to eMarketer, shorter subject lines performed better than longer ones. Subject lines of less than 35 characters yielded an average open rate of 19.6% and a 3.1% average click rate. E-mails with subject lines of 35 or more characters drew average open rates of 14.8% and average click rates of 1.9%.

Source: eMarketing: Consumers Opening Fewer E-Mails

When do People Check Email?

Well... looks like people check their emails all day long.

Source: eMarketing: When Do You Check Your E-Mail?

eMarketer: 2/3 of adults prefer E-Mail as Preferred Mode of Communication

67% of Adults surveyed said they prefer Email as the preferred mode of communication when dealing with businesses, and more importantly, they expect this to remain to be their favorite 5 years from now. More than 88% of respondents said they would like more choices in e-mail content and frequency, including options on advertisements and special offers. The biggest expect drop is postal mail, from 35% to 23%. The biggest expected jumps are: text messaging or IM, and video conferencing or web meetings.

On the other hand, the expected online spending for Email marketing is expected to increase relatively modestly comparing to other channels like search marketing, rich media, and lead generation.

Source: eMarketer: What Is the Future of E-Mail?