[Day 2] Email Insiders Summit – Email From the Outside In

David Baker, VP Email Solutions for Avenue A|Razorfish, opens up with a couple of comments and takes a poll of the audience, wherein roughly one-third are first time attendees. There is a 3:1 ratio of email marketers to service providers or vendors.

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The first keynote speaker is David Barlin, Sr. Product Mgr at Microsoft (Windows Live) who has a background in email since 1997. Once of the topics he plans to address is the proliferation of marketing silos. As an example, the lack of integration between the email and search channel.

A study by Microsoft showed how search conversion goes up 22% when consumer is also shown a display ad prior to the search activity. An Altel case study revealed a 56% increase versus search alone.

David, segways into discussing display advertising in email and shares the following key thought “Be top of mind where people plan their life.” He follows up later with some additional points:

• Understand your customer
• Hit the right Moment
• Spark the conversation
• Use brand to maximize ROI

Basically, Microsoft says it’s a good idea to combine search and display ads (ala AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) with your relevant emails to drive brand awareness and increased conversion.

Hotmail conducted a study with 15,000 participants around the world to better understand the top topics discussed in email. Not suprisingly travel, consumer electronic/gadget purchases, and social activities were at the top. Hotmail has made the study public domain, I’ll post as soon as I can get my hands on it.

[Day 1] Email Insiders Summit – Social Media

“This social stuff is even harder to measure than email”

Jupiter Research presented by David Daniels indicates thats email will be a 2.1 billion industry in 2012. he also points out that the amount of email reaching a person’s primary address hasn’t gone up that much in the last couple of years and there’s more adoption of using the cell phone to check email. For the often desired 18-24 year old demographic, email is still an effective driver for purchase, but we need to understand that email as an application is less compelling to them.

I think there’s another round of new widgets and sites ahead, but there’s got to be a consolidation of these mediums. That or social aggregators will become the new “hotness.”

Marketing still has a little time to figure out why and how they should care about social networking and media, but if the panelists and research are tracking to the overall behavior of the college students today, then we need to figure out how to reach them in their mediums if they won’t come to email.

[Day 1] Email Insiders Summit – Next Generation, Does Email Have a Future?

Micherlle Prieb, Project Manager and Researcher at Ball St. University Center for Media Design moderated the panel of 3 University students on the panel.

Each student with introduced and asked to describe what media couldn’t they live without. Examples from the panelists include the smartphone – checking email, spend upwards of 2000 minutes a month in cell phone use, and mobile sites. General internet and computer use is an average of 7-8 hrs. a day. Most are early adopters of mobile. 

The college students were all in agreement that they consider the use of email to prmarily be where they conduct “important,/corporate world interactions (ie. college, job recruiters). However, social networks, and specifically Facebook, is the primary point of communication socially and with friends. One panelist describes his morning wake-up ritual as check email and facebook. All are reluctant to integrate business and social contacts into Facebook. As one panelist says: you can’t “poke your professor,” referring to a Facebook nudging feature. Amanda’s position is that social networks are solely about communicating with friends today. Brandon is more hesitant to open email than he is to a participate on a social network (it’s more fun) and perception that email is full of advertising, solicitation, and junk. Email is secondary in their world.  Here were a couple of questions posed:

How do you see your behavior change as you enter workforce?

August says that email will not be as preferred in the workplace, as today’s college students get entrenched as the next business leaders, but he’s not sure which network- likely something not yet conceived; Amanda & Brandon don’t think the shift will happen as quickly and email is still a professional platform for communicating to your boss or coworkers and the social network method of communication as not something they’ll integrate into their professional lives. 

How do you feel about branding/marketing messages being delivered to email?

The key message from the students? The more targeted, less intruisive it is, the better. All were more tolerant of opted-in email, but their responsiveness and acceptance will change day-to-day. The students all have a perception that if they are unsure of the email, then they will delete it as it may have a virus. Also, the myth persists amongst the college kids that the unsub functionality is a confirmation to spammers to send more.

The panelists prefer a more targeted, blog/content related email and less focus on coupon or deals. For instance one panelist won’t delete email from Apple, it’s “slick,” interesting, and not to freuqnently delivered. Amanda loves newsletters – Mediapost, blogs and anything with an immediately relevant content or subject. No panelist could define a specific metric of “too much frequency” but all wanted to know upfront what to expect when they do opt-in.

 

Public speaking and dealing with stage fright

Stephanie Miller wrote up a summary of the Expedia presentation at the Email Insider Summit on Saturday. Her words were more eloquent than my own and distilled our discussion down to a core message that Carey and I feel passionate about… “less is more” and creating compelling subscriber experiences. 

Generally speaking, I’m always nervous before giving a presentation and this weekend was no different. How do I handle the inevitable stage fright that comes with being on stage?