Digital + Social

The release of AOL 9.0, with its new personalized adaptive filters, and similar services from other Internet service providers (ISPs) has opened a new front of the spam wars. These filters are designed to learn from and adapt to the types of e-mail that each recipient considers to be spam. It has long been known that the more relevant the e-mail, the higher the likelihood a consumer will open and read it. These new filtering approaches reward relevant e-mail that consumers are likely to read and penalize e-mail that fails to address individual interests.

Sure, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but every day is a good day to romance your customer base. Chris Baggott, chief marketing officer of e-mail services provider ExactTarget, detailed five ways to “bring love to your customers”–and of course, encourage them to love you back:

It’s widely known that e-mail is one of the most powerful marketing tools available for today’s small organizations. With e-mail, businesses of any size can cost-effectively solidify existing relationships, initiate new ones, and convert one-time visitors

Flexible mailing frequency, event-driven messages, and the growing importance of the “from” line are among the trends in e-mail marketing that practitioners should be aware of, according to ExactTarget, an Indianapolis-based developer of e-mail marketing solutions.

Testing e-mail prospecting lists is in many ways the same as testing postal lists, says Don Buck, president of Milwaukee-based consultancy Buck Marketing. But e-mail testing has its own distinct challenges as well.

Smart postal mailers carefully plan their campaigns, taking both season and day of week into account. So should e-mailers, say executives from UAL Loyalty

Royal Farros, CEO of MessageCast, was the last presenter on the last day of September’s annual Direct Marketing Association meeting in New Orleans. But to hear him tell it, he didn’t mind bringing up the rear. After all, he’s got something better than e-mail

Sometimes it seems like everybody’s putting up roadblocks for e-mail direct marketing campaigns.

Marketers tackle getting past ISPs and other issues in Direct’s annual e-mail roundtable

Successful e-mail marketing involves growing your e-mail list, providing content that is relevant and fresh, engages your audience and, ultimately, closes