MindComet

Is Email Marketing Becoming Stagnant?

After reading this post on the No man is an iland blog, I feel compelled to respond and give my two cents.  They pose the question “Why is email marketing becoming stagnant?”  This is supported by the fact that B2C emails featuring both free and sales offers dropped in 2006.  They hypothesize that it’s a combination of a few things including:

- Statistical anomalies
- New marketers still getting ramped up to the ins and outs of email marketing
- General malaise
- Over shooting their email list quotas
- The ever-annoying Outlook 2007

I agree with some of the points mentioned, but I do believe a few things have been left out.

Yes, Outlook 2007 is extremely temperamental and is difficult to code emails for (No background images!?  Seriously!?).
Yes, I agree that the majority of emails that come through my inbox lack charisma and creativity.
And yes, there are a lot of fresh faces in the game, trying to make a name for themselves, but who are unfamiliar with the basics.

I think we have to consider that other sources for information on the web are more widely used, which may have influenced a drop in a B2C email presence.  More and more companies are sinking their online budgets into ads, viral campaigns, and SEM.  Yet, the most ROI-generating form of media online is still direct-email marketing.

So what gives?  Does the problem lie with communicating these cold-hard facts to potential business?  Is email inherently at a disadvantage since you can’t incorporate embedded flash or video on a widespread basis (as Mac Mail is the only client that displays video)?

The best way to solve problems like these is to collaborate with other email-marketing specialists.

If you’re in the email marketing game, I suggest you sign up for Email Marketer’s Club.  We can use the EMC to band together, get a dialogue going, address these tough questions and get them answered once and for all.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 18, 2007

Very Short List

Daily email campaigns are annoying.  The majority of them become stale, both content-wise and design-wise.  I’ve been on the lookout for a daily email that consistently holds my interest, and through the help of StumbleUpon, I think I may have found one.

Very Short List is a culturally driven daily email, which focuses on a variety of topics not limited to, but including entertainment and media.  Whether it’s an obscure comedy album from The Goons, a biography on Groucho Marx, a cool interactive website or the latest Criterion Collection DVD release, nothing’s off limits.  The more obscure, the better.  The way they put it is “We write about things we’ve discovered that please us so much that we can’t wait to tell other people about them.“

I really don’t have enough good things to say about VSL… The content is consistent, always engaging and interesting.  The email’s design is simple and effective, but never stagnant. The header image and pie chart changes daily in relation to the message’s topic.  Even the ads are tasteful and never really take away from the content within. 

See for yourself.

Color me impressed.  Sign up for it right here.

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Posted by MindComet on Oct. 02, 2007