According this post on the blog site, TechCrunch, Facebook will be releasing a full-blown Web mail client for its 400,000,000 users (yes, 400 million). Apparently, the internal rally cry at Facebook is to take on Gmail.
For years, the pundits said the proprietary email systems of the early social networks were walled gardens. The benefit was that they restricted spam and unwanted communications. But in the end, I think consumers prefer open and unfettered access, and they are willing to put up with some annoyances to get it.
Our head of products shared this little posting from Facebook’s developer site. In short, it seems that a growing number of Facebook users prefer to be contacted by good ‘ole email rather than Facebook’s proprietary email —Facebook’s application developers have been pressing to get easier access to their email addresses.
Apparently, even the walled gardens of Facebook aren’t enough to extinguish the value of email. Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook’s email can readily replace email for some segments of the population. But overall, this posting and the general trends I’m watching indicate that email continues to be relevant, even in the world of social networks.
If you were ever interested in how content-based advertising has evolved and, even more so, where it might be going, this TechCrunch article does a great job of describing it. It focuses on the rise and future of online video advertising, but its insights can easily apply to the evolution of any kind of advertising. A few of my favorite takeaways:
The more content that’s available, the higher the percent of time people will spend consuming content
Half of video content is sought out, but the other half is stumbled upon
Content “portals” matter less and less as content is shared through social networks and search engines (e.g., I didn’t know that “YouTube is the second largest search engine”)
In other words, further proof that relevancy is king and connecting with customers through multiple channels is essential in today’s marketplace.
I admit to waiting breathlessly for the announcement of this game-changing device. I will also admit to checking my favorite news sites every 2-3 minutes throughout Steve Jobs’ announcement as each nugget of inspired product vision was doled out to the audience. I’ll even admit that I plan on buying an iPad as soon as I can get my hands on one. But, I don’t think the iPad will be enshrined in history like the iPod and the iPhone already are.
It was inevitable that Pixar would ultimately make Ratatouille; and it was inevitable that Apple would eventually make an iPad. History will most certainly show that Ratatouille and the iPad were financially successful—they may even be considered hits. But they both will always live in the shadow of their even greater predecessors. I enjoyed Ratatouille, but Toy Story and Finding Nemo changed everything.
Earlier this week, I attended the Gridley conference—an annual event put on by investment bank Gridley & Company for the investment community. The audience consisted of company execs and venture capitalists focused on information services industries such as Internet, marketing, financial technology, and data and outsourcing services. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of excitement about the rise of behavioral targeting and networks.
I didn’t want to squelch the optimism, but I asked a few people how they felt things might turn out if the trends in Washington (not to mention the legislation being passed in Europe) leaning toward regulation stemming from consumer concerns over privacy come to maturity. Almost universally, people shrugged their shoulders—it just was not on their radar. I’ve been thinking about blogging on the risks of a more regulated use of third-party data, but this great article in iMedia Connection beat me to the punch.
If you rely on third-party advertising networks, this article is worth a quick read.
I spent a great day at the Gridley conference in Manhattan. One of the best quotes came from the respected author, David Meerman Scott. I won’t get it precisely right, so I’ll have to paraphrase, but he was speaking to the changes in marketing. He said, historically, there were three ways to get attention: Buy it with ads; beg for it with PR; and using a salesforce, badger one person at a time. In the future, attention will have to be earned.
In my personal view, earning attention is another way of describing “engagement marketing.”
Thanks to my colleague passing along this recent eMarketer article, which points out the interesting differences in the way B2B and B2C marketers approach social marketing.
According to the article, which cites a new Business.com social media benchmark study, both sets of marketers are rapidly adopting social media, but they are going about it differently. For example, B2B firms are more likely to manage profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, while B2C companies are more likely to be present on Facebook and MySpace. And, B2B companies are more likely to participate in discussions on third-party sites like Yahoo! Answers and LinkedIn and monitor company mentions on various social media, while their B2C counterparts are more likely to support a system of user ratings and reviews and manage online communities for customers and prospects.
Of the many interesting takeaways, the one that surprised me most was the apparent higher level of focus on social marketing of B2B marketers over their B2C colleagues. I’ve always thought of social marketing as a consumer-centric endeavor, but as a B2B marketer, I think the relatively small number of customers makes it easier to engage on social media.
Everyone in marketing vehemently agrees that data-driven targeting has the potential to change the world of marketing in the future. Well, a company called Next Jump appears to be doing it today. The firm, which serves as a technology engine to a sizeable network of retailers, analyzes data to draw inferences about what a person would be likely to buy, and at what price. It has kept a low profile over the years, but its promise and achievements so far are truly unique.
Described by one employee as a “personalized advertising platform,” the company says that 60 percent of Web surfers who see an ad or offer click on it, and that one out of every 11 people who see one of its ads makes a purchase. For comparison, a 5 percent click-through rate is considered great performance, as is getting viewer in 1,000 to make a purchase.
If you’re a fan of data-driven targeting, this short article about the company that recently appeared in the New York Times is worth a read.
In the never-ending fight to block spam, Internet service providers first created content filters. Then came the “spam” button. And now, the gatekeepers of deliverability are looking at a new way to determine whether your email makes it to the inbox:
Engagement.
Every marketer talks about engagement (and we are big fans of the idea here at Silverpop). But the inbox folks at America Online, Yahoo and others are taking the idea to a new level. In short, if your recipients aren’t interacting with your messages, it could affect whether an ISP delivers your email.
As you can see in this Direct article on the topic, spammers have found a way around the spam button by artificially driving down complaint percentages. This is one reason the big ISPs are looking for new, even more inventive ways to determine if your messages are truly desired by your recipients. Engagement is becoming the new spam button.
While the details are still private, it’s a pretty good bet that ISPs will be looking at factors like opens and clicks to determine just how engaged your recipients are. If you want to successfully make it into the inbox and stay there, a low complaint rate will no longer be enough. Your recipients will actually have to read and interact with your messages.
This is definitely bad news for spammers. But in the greater scheme of things, it’s a move that will help legitimate marketers and recipients alike. As we move into 2010, it’s more important than ever to make sure your messages are relevant and engaging. Your lifetime customer relationships, ROI—and increasingly your email deliverability—are counting on it.
Silverpop just released its analysis of early holiday email marketing campaigns, and the results make for some quick and meaty reading. Our research team looked at the email marketing programs of 70 retail and consumer product companies, comparing last year’s campaigns with those sent last month. Among the findings:
Marketers sent 25 percent more emails in November this year than they did in 2008. During the week leading up to Thanksgiving through “Cyber Monday” following the holiday, they sent 22 percent more emails this year than last.
Response jumped for subject lines offering discounts. Sixty-two percent of marketers studied this year used a discount offer of some type in the subject line, compared to 66 percent last year. In 2008, the open rate for emails offering discounts was only 17 percent. This year, it jumped to 31 percent.
What kind of subject-line offer generated the most opens? A gift with purchase or buy-one-get-one (BOGO) promotion was far more likely to generate an open (36 percent) than a percent off (21 percent), or dollar or British pound off purchase offer (12 percent).
For more results, including list growth, deliverability, and open and click-through rates, check out our news release here.
