Bronto Blog

At the moment, I am truly confused with the current state of my personal Yahoo! account. As a long time end user of Yahoo!, I have recently started to question the accuracy of their inbox filtering system. I no longer receive mail I have subscribed to except on a rare occasion. I do however continue to receive an endless wave of SPAM which is cause for concern. The unfortunate state of my account has raised a very real question – “what has happened to my Yahoo! Inbox?”

As an avid online consumer I have signed up to receive messages from a wide array of leading retail companies. I have always entrusted my account to feed my shopping impulses – knowing I would receive at least two or three messages a day from my favorite retailers. Over the last four months though, my inbox has run amuck with more and more SPAM and fewer and fewer retail messages.

What propelled me to write this post though was the fact that over the last month the havoc in my Yahoo! account has hit an all-time high. I am currently bombarded with unwanted, irrelevant SPAM and no longer receiving the vast majority of the mail I have willingly subscribed to. For example, I have not received a message from HSN in over two and a half weeks or my weekly messages from Toys “R” Us since the beginning of February.

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I had the fortune of attending the Online Marketing Summit this past week in San Diego and the “buzzword” was social media. What is it? How does it impact your business? How do you make it work without compromising your brand? All loaded questions. The most important takeaway was the need to commit the time and the resources to making it successful. In the ever-changing marketing landscape, we often neglect planning and instead focus on acting. Both are needed to create a cohesive social network that delivers relevancy and collaboration. Add in multi-channel tactics promoting your network and you have created a cohesive strategy.

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This week Bronto is busy exhibiting and participating in the 3rd Annual Marketing Sherpa Email Summit in sunny Miami, Florida.

Along with meeting some great email marketers, we’re busy learning new tips and tricks for email marketing.

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I recently had a chance to hear Kelly Murtha, the Director of Relationship Management at Netflix, speak at the Email Evolution Conference in San Diego. As a new Netflix user I was interested to hear more about the email program that I had been just introduced to, and Kelly provided insight into what they’re doing to really leverage the email channel.

Now, their emails aren’t the most visually appealing things out there, but they are functional and effective. I don’t want to get into too many low level details, they get a lot of that right. Consistent and appropriate from names, good subject lines, and attention to images-off rendering - it’s all good, but I want to talk more about the strategy they have.

Welcome To Netflix!

I see the cornerstone of their email marketing program as their new member life cycle campaign. As soon as you sign up, Netflix welcomes you to their world - they are teaching you their lingo and telling you what the next steps are. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many cool aspects of working in the technology industry is learning (and developing) new terms. In case you missed it, a few newbies over the past several months include:

• Bacn: Bronto highlighted it in this very blog a few months back; there is even an entire site dedicated to Bacn (buy your shirt now)
• Remail: Tactic #5, or remarketing as some have named it
• Preheader / Snippet Text: see details below

So…what is the “snippet text?” Stefan Pollard defines it as the “tiny but significant parcel of real estate in your email message.” I especially like his “3-step Extreme Snippet Makeover.”

Lisa Harmon - one of the Voices of Email contributors from the Email Experience Council Blog - evaluates a few messages which utilize the snippet text, or preheader as she calls it. The Pottery Barn Kids example is most in line with what I’d recommend. The key is adding value (i.e, more than “if you’re having trouble viewing…”), while avoiding rehashing what you have in the email body. Comment #1 validates this very point.

I wrote about preheaders back in October of 2007. Since that time, I’ve worked with several clients and you’d be amazed at the results. Click-throughs on the clear call-to-action in the preheader have shot through the roof. It’s amazing that your creative department can spend all that time (and $$) on building “the perfect” email design, and all subscribers want to do is go directly to your site!

Please comment on this blog post with ways you’ve successfully utilized the preheader. The revolution begins now.

DJ Waldow
Account Manager at Bronto