Day 4 – part 2: Michon (Unilever Belgium) speaks at the summit

Live blog from the MarketingSherpa Email Summit ‘08 in Miami

During the last day I attended an early session about spam complaints and how to handle them. I’m glad I didn’t miss that one. Here are some interesting findings from a recent study presented at the Summit…

• 21% of the people use the spam button, rather than unsubscribe via the unsubscribe link in an email. Even if they are aware that a message isn’t spam. Amazing!
• 52% admits that their perception about spam is “everything they didn’t sign up for”.
• 41% state that spam is “everything they don’t find interesting”.

ISP’s give more and more credit to reputation instead of content filtering. Keep these figures in mind. And be aware that ignoring them can have unpleasant consequences. We should start thinking about ways to collect that spam button info and do something useful with it. Unsubscribe these people, but they won’t harm your company’s image by pushing the wrong button.

Another case grabbed my attention, but sadly it turned out to be a waste of time. The buzzing title “Deploying Video eMagazines to enhance engagement” had my hopes up high. I was expecting something fancy, like streaming video, right? It really tickled my curiosity, as I know that rendering in-mail video is practically impossible. So, what was it all about? A simple HTML email referring to a landing page with 3 online movies selling the service of a company. That was it. Some case, huh?

After that session, Michon was on. Although I knew she was nervous, she made her point with cool. It turned out to be – and I’m honestly not saying this because Michon is one of our clients – one of the best cases of this Summit. Well presented, perfectly structured and scheduled right on time. She even had time left for some interesting questions from the audience. Well done, Michon!

As a conclusion the top 5 take-aways of this event:

1. Email marketers have to be more than just marketers. They have to think sales and marketing, defend budgets, understand metrics and have substantial IT-knowledge.
2. Is 2008 the year that email marketers get religion on landing pages? The landing page finally gets as important as the email message itself.
3. It’s all about the message. Copy is crucial, period. Learn how to sell your product or service in a simple, clear language.
4. Marketing + IT = a great marriage!  The most compelling campaigns are the result of good interplay between both.
5. Email isn’t dead. Hell no, you bet it ain’t!

From Miami,

Kenny Van Beeck

PS: Here are some YouTube impressions of the Email Summit location: http://www.youtube.com/user/kvanbeeck