To paraphrase:
1. Understand your client
2. Create segments
3. Provide timely info
4. Define events broadly
5. automate
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Regina Brady discusses triggered email with Target Marketing

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I receive quite a bit of trigger e-mail these days. I’m fully aware that it comes from a bot, or macro. However, that doesn’t reduce it’s effectiveness. It’s comforting to know that a product has shipped, or a date has been confirmed, or product is now in stock. Other triggers that I receive are rain alerts, traffic alerts, low balance alerts, payment due alerts, payment posted alerts. Now that I think of it, a fair amount of the email that I receive is trigger email. The weird thing is, as much as I enjoy the convenience of receiving such correspondence, I shy away from creating the same type of messages. Maybe it’s time…

Tim Ash chases the elusive ‘perfect’ registration page in this very timely post.
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When you read studies showing average e-mail open and click-through rates, do you compare your own results to these statistics with glee or chagrin? In either case, you have the opportunity to improve your reaults if you put a laser-like focus on your audience members. Give them content and offers they want, and you have a better chance of engaging them

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Improve your results one e-mail at a time

It’s a new year, and this is the perfect time to make plans to improve results from your e-mail programs by conducting some meaningful tests.

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A three-step game plan to conduct an e-mail audit

Every company has marketing activities it performs exceptionally. For example, one marketer may have superior e-mail creative, while another may have mastered the use of triggered messaging. While we all strive for excellence, it’s a fact that we can’t shine in every area. It’s a good idea to turn your focus outward and analyze your competition. You just might learn something.

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An effective direct mail strategy is based on the synergy of multiple key elements working together to generate cost-effective response – not just one or two tactical pieces. Focus on only one – such as the format – at the expense of the rest, and you’ll dramatically limit your response.

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Recently there has been a great deal of buzz around the idea that “engagement” is a new metric used by ISPs and other mailbox providers to determine mailbox placement. However, engagement isnt new at all.  It has been a part of the filtering mix for quite a while.  The ISPs are simply adding clicks, opens and a few other measure of user engagement to the long list of other engagement metrics that have been in use for a while.

via MediaPost Publications Engagement: The New Frontier In Deliverability? 10/06/2009.

At a time when the corporate world seems increasingly obsessed with digital solutions, legendary direct marketer Ernan Roman has some compelling news for brands: Recipients actually want your traditional mail. Roman says that prospects and customers have been so overwhelmed with e-mails in recent years that the deluge has turned off many of them. It has also made them more receptive to mail.

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Email: You can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. For a relatively recent business tool, email certainly plays a big role in the lives of office workers. The average business user sends and receives about 170 messages a day…

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