Get ahead of the game on this week’s Chatter Marketing: “Getting Your Holiday Email Ducks in a Row” with eWayDirect’s Bob Cloutier.

Learn How To:

• Get everything you need to do NOW to make your holiday sales take off
• Prepare your holiday email campaign
• Hit the ground running this holiday season

Don’t miss out on this great advice for the biggest shopping season of the year!

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. If you have any questions you would like Bob to answer, you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

Although not a visually stunning or very interactive email newsletter, the Hillsborough (and Chapel Hill) Wine Company fires off a series of newsletters that is compelling as the wines themselves. The email includes anchor tags that help you navigate through the email, rather than to their website itself. While this isn’t conducive to high click-through rates, it keeps you in one place.

The Hillsborough Wine Company gives updates on Case of the Week, which offers a special on a varied case of wine with a specific point of view in mind. Whether it be a region, particular flavor set, or even just a random assortment, you’re offered a whopping case of wine at a fabulous price.

On their website signing up for their newsletter is easy; just beyond the fold is an email input and check boxes for what you would like to receive news about, their weekly, reds, whites, regions, or just specific wines.

Give them a read, it’s an easy read and a great newsletter for local (or not) wine aficionados.

2. Threadless

Fast!

The easiest way to describe the efficiency of the Threadless Newsletter. One of two newsletters to send the quickest and most reassuring emails, within 10 minutes of signing up. Others wait til their first circular. The company is based off of submitted T-Shirt designs which are later voted on, and printed for new shirts every week. So, unlike most newsletters which give revolving info on products you’ve seen in store, or items you might see every-so-often, you’re getting something 100% new, and “never before seen” in every newsletter.

And if you want to be a part of the Threadless news, it’s the easiest one of this whole list. An obvious widget on their right hand only asks for your email… no names, no address, nada, just your email.

3. Borders Book Store

I have had Borders’ emails for a while now. Adding on to their Borders perks rewards program, their emails are loaded with coupons, offers, and best of all rewards outside of their own rewards program. Sign-up is a breeze and the confirmation email is quick and reassuring, by clicking their Weekly Deals box at the top right of the website, or scrolling down to their newsletter sign up. Best of all, they only ask for 4 fields, making sign up easy and painless. Avid readers will love consistent coupons for anywhere from BOGO to 50% off single items.

4. Bed Bath and Beyond

The home shopping central’s newsletter is amazing. The emails based around their actual paper circular is loaded with weekly coupons, promotions, new additions, and even website functions like the store locator. While their sign-up tends to be slightly lengthier than others, the payoff when the emails arrive is by far worth it.

If you have a child going into College, or moving into a new apartment or home, BB&B’s newsletter is loaded.

I was taken aback only slightly by their newsletter, as I wasn’t sent a confirmation when I signed up. The only affirmation was a small Thank You after pressing the Submit button. If you’re not one for Email, you also have the ability to sign up for their Direct Mailings, which honestly you probably get anyways from the postal service.

The entirely HTML email is easy on the eyes and easy to actually shop through if you know you need home items. There are coupons for both in-store and online, so you can stay at home, or explore the store and still get the benefits of their emails.

5. Sports Authority

Sign up incentives – yes, please! Sports Authority offers a 10% Discount on your online purchase after you sign up. Which, even if you want just one email, that would be fine. Custom localized offers, product releases and updates are all done through their weekly. A full newly-updated, HTML email is laid out almost like their web page. The larger font and clear use of making the newsletter much more like an online store, your email turns into a sports shopping central.

Best of all the “shareability” of the Sports Authority is phenomenal, 3 huge buttons on the top right let you share by Twitter, or Facebook right off the bat!

Thumbnail Credit – JAIRO BD

This week on Chatter Marketing: “Improve your Inbox Deliverability Today with Anthony Pisani”

Learn How To:

• Use feedback loops to improve deliverability
• Pay attention to what feedback loops tell you
• Get consistently whitelisted

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. If you have any questions you would like Anthony to answer, you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

Jacqueline Causa will teach you:

• How to differentiate between online and offline offers
• How to avoid common pitfalls in creating marketing offers
• How to use offers to increase targeted website traffic

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. If you have any questions you would like Jacqueline to answer, you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

Does it depend on who they’re going to?

What about which weekday is best?

Tomorrow at 2pm, eWayDirect’s vice-president of customer support, Patricia Wilson will be on our Chatter Marketing webinar series talking about Emails in an episode titled “Timing is Everything”.

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. You can RSVP on Facebook or LinkedIn, and please feel free to tell your friends and colleagues about our show. If you have any questions you’d like Patricia to answer, you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

In our discussion of email appends we will answer a few questions. How can a marketer make them work? How does one minimize the risks involved? How is the practice seen by others-including customers?

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. You can RSVP on Facebook or LinkedIn, and please feel free to tell your friends and colleagues about our show. If you have any questions you’d like Bob to answer, you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

**Click Here to Join us Tuesday at 2pm**

Join us for another episode of Chatter Marketing on Tuesday, June 29th to get the real scoop.

If you’ve ever wondered about images, calls to action, copy, timing, or anything else about the content of your emarketing efforts, tune in to hear our VP of sales, Tina MacNicholl, tell you exactly what you should-and shouldn’t-be doing!

We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday at 2pm for this show. You can RSVP on Facebook or LinkedIn, and please feel free to tell your friends and colleagues about our show. If you have any questions you’d like Tina to answer,you can leave a comment here or send us the question through Twitter @ewaydirect.

**Click Here to Join us Tuesday at 2pm**

Don’t forget about engaging people in other ways, too.

You have at least a few other tools at your disposal to engage people in other ways. Consider taking advantage of these methods of getting people’s attention and engaging them.

Email

If you’re not using email effectively, you probably shouldn’t even be worrying about setting up a good Facebook page or using Twitter the right way. Email is still often the best way to engage people. If your customers have already opted-in to receive emails from you, you can engage them in email through a variety of ways. This can be anything from a simple email from a real human thanking the customer for purchasing and asking for ideas on how the company can be doing a better job to complex action-based email campaigns.

Assuming you’re using a good email service provider, you should be able to automatically send campaigns to people based on a variety of actions (opens, clicks, purchases, order size, frequency of purchase, date of last purchase, etc).

You also should be able to send emails to people and engage them based on what pages of you’re website they’ve visited. You may be starting to think about rewarding people for “checking in” to your business via a geo-location service like Foursquare. Don’t forget that you can reward people for checking in or visiting your website, too.

Lastly, you should have a strategy in place for re-engaging inactive people in your database. Depending on your goals and situation, you may even want to have a separate reactivation strategy for your different audience segments (people who’ve never bought from you, people who’ve bought once, people who have opened but not bought, etc).

Direct Mail and Letters

Direct mail might not have the buzz around it that some newer online platforms have, but it isn’t dead. You can still send out some cool, attention-grabbing pieces through the mail. Or it can be as simple as writing your customers a hand-written letter every now and then. This goes a long way to show someone you’re thinking about them and that you appreciate them.

Phone Calls

Many people might prefer to engage with you via email or through social networks. But others would rather talk to you on the phone. Phone calls are a great way to build on a relationship that’s been created through social media or email and make things more personal. You’re not limited to 140 characters, and it’s a lot easier to tell someone’s tone of voice and mood through a phone call. What if you called each of your customers and just thanked them for being a customer? Or just told them you were thinking about them and wanted to touch base? Talking to someone on the phone is a great way to show you care.

Surveys and Polls (Online and Offline)

It’s important to learn what’s important to your audience, right? Instead of trying to guess, you can just ask them. You can use complicated survey tools and software or use simple 10-question surveys and free tools like Surveymonkey and Polldaddy to understand what people want, what they think of you, and what is important to them.

Events

Events are another great way to engage people. While social media, email and phone calls are great, there is still no substitute for talking to someone face-to-face. Depending on your goals, you may want to make the face-to-face meeting with someone your goal and use social media, email and phone calls to get there.

You can engage people at industry-specific events, take them out to fun (non-work events), or even host your own event for your best customers and clients. The nice thing about the latter is that you not only give your audience a chance to meet and learn from you; you’re giving them a chance to meet and learn from each other. And events are fun!

Apps and Games

The market for useful, entertaining and informational apps and games is poised to explode. As more people buy robust mobile devices such as iPhones, Droids, Blackberrys and iPads, there will be even more ways to reach people and engage them in new formats. If you can create and app or game that engages your audience and holds their attention, this will help drive awareness, leads, sales and repeat customers.

–

Those are a few ideas for other ways (besides social media) to engage people. The best thing to do would be to test a variety of ways and see what works and which ones work best together. You may find that all of these work well or maybe only one of them does.

Now that you’ve read my ideas, what ideas would you share with people on how they can engage their audience?

Email marketing was the strongest performing advertising channel in 2009 according to 39% of marketing executives.

That means with the shifting trend, budgets will be shifting into online and digital marketing. In 2010, 59.8% of marketers are planning to spend over one-half of their budgets on online marketing efforts.

Among specific tactics, over three-quarters (77.6%) of marketers are using targeting as part of their online marketing strategy this year. Some 71.2% say they are employing customer analytics and measurement tools.

Marketers are also increasingly becoming interested in online video and mobile marketing. But one thing that marketers are still hung up on is social media. Marketers aren’t sure whether social media delivers returns; 50.4% say social media will generate quantifiable results this year (vs. 49.4% last year); however, another 37.6% are uncertain and 12.0% say social media cannot deliver quantifiable results this year.

The data suggests that email and search marketing are performing the best for marketers, but those are still only two tools in the online marketing tool belt that can be implemented. What would an ideal mix be?

For the full article and stats, click here.

Do you understand the implications if you choose not to follow them?

Join us tomorrow, April 6 at 2pm EST to learn more about the CAN-SPAM Act from our compliance manager, Tony Pisani. Tony will be appearing on our 7th episode of Chatter Marketing: Tuesdays at 2, to share his knowledge of CAN-SPAM and what you should do to remain in compliance and protect your brand.

Click Here to Join us Tuesday at 2pm

RSVP for Chatter Marketing Episode 7 on Facebook or LinkedIn

New To Chatter Marketing?

If you’re new here and wondering what our Chatter Marketing series is, it’s  a free weekly 10-minute series that wil give you something you can do in the next 5 minutes  (after the show ends) to improve your emarketing efforts. Past episodes have featured tips on social media marketing, SEO marketing, and PPC marketing. You can see all past videos here.

If you ever have topics or ideas you’d like to see us cover in this weekly series, please feel free to let us know!