If you need another boost of ego, the following study comes in handy. Based on a 30-day period of tracking conversion rates across four different channels, this study showed that email was still a winner.

The conversions were tracked by Marketing Experiments across multiple channels, including organic site traffic, AdWords traffic, Yahoo Search PPC and a rented email list. The financial publisher involved in the study was unnamed.

At 5.60 percent, the conversion rate from the email list significantly outperformed the three other marketing channels. Only organic site traffic, at 2.71 percent, came close.

My comments: Of course, a study like this doesn’t give you any promise as to what marketing channels work for you better.

There are too many factors that could impact conversion rates. Search traffic, for example, involves targeting the right keywords and use the appropriate copy to convert visitors into prospects and prospects into buyers. Not all keywords are the same, they also differ in the visitors’ readiness to purchase.

On the other hand, setting up the right AdWords campaign also involve a bunch of things to test out with. Constantly split testing two ads to beat the control will frequently yield better results.

However, such a research gives an idea about what is possible with email marketing. It is still an effective channel to reach people in your market. Building your in-house list, I predict, will get you even higher conversion rate, assuming that you build and nurture it properly.

[eMarketer]

Let’s say you have been collecting email addresses from web site, through speaking engagements and other marketing efforts for at least six months to one year. The audience might agree to receive further information from you. The email addresses are there as part of the complementary information you requested.

You haven’t taken any action on it, until recently.

You heard that email marketing is going to make your follow-up easy. It can even automate part of the lead nurturing process for you.

Or perhaps, you are sending the inaugural issue your email newsletter very soon. Great.

It is easy to think that because people have granted permission once, you can send them any email anytime.

The fact is, email addresses become stale.

People change email addresses every so often. They also lost interest in something for many reasons. Another thing is that people forget they have opted in after some time.

If you send unscrupulously, the bouncebacks may raise a warning on ISPs. This in turn will get you blocked from future mailings. The “this is spam” button is only one click away too.

The recommended practice is to send an invitation to opt-in again to your list.

The entire process may involve entering user information again, or sending any email to a specialized address to confirm opt-in.

An extended effort includes requesting user feedback through a simple survey. For the latter, you can ask specifically which content the subscribers like most or are expecting.

The drawback is that you are going to lose subscribers. Sometimes as much as 70% or even more. But the result is a much more responsive and clean names for you to start sending mails to. Leaving stale addresses in your list will not only impact your response negatively, but also put your reputation at stake.

One problem commonly found among email marketers is about assumed permission. This is actually a gray area where as a legitimate marketer, you have to be careful not to fall into the trap and put your reputation at stake.

Companies often overlook this specific issue because there is no rule around how marketers should approach implied permission.

This post tries to give you some best practices so you can play on the safe side and comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Perhaps the best way to explain this by giving an example or scenario.

A common one will go like this:

“Your company is launching a second email newsletter and want to build as many subscribers as possible in the shortest time.”

Building your readership from scratch obviously is not a solution if you want to do it fast. So scratch that out. Not that it is wrong, but that is not what we want in this scenario.

Tapping into other resources seems to be a good strategy.

If you currently have your own in-house list, it is easy to think that since your readers have explicitly give you permission — assuming you build a clean list — to send them your first newsletter, you can send them the second one without requesting another permission.

Perhaps it is related. But still, the problems remain.

First and foremost, none of your subscribers raise their hand to receive your second newsletter. Although they are somewhat related, they might not be exactly what they want.

As this email usually is also a commercial email, it could be considered spam because the recipients don’t request for it.

The temptation to take the initial opt-in as a global permission to send your subscribers any other material is something we should aware of.

The good news is, you don’t have to start from zero. You can leverage existing resources and go from there.

Here are ways to approach using permission for different scenarios:

• If it is an in-house list, send an introductory email. This email should explain to the readers about your offer to opt-in to your second newsletter. Provide as much details as possible such as the topic, content, frequency, etc. If they are interested with your offer, they have to take action. You end up with smaller list but it really consists of those who want to receive the second newsletter. Don’t forget to include user records about when they subscribed and from which email. Every subsequent mailing for both list should include opt-out links.
• The second way is to tap into rented lists. The most important thing to remember when renting a list is to find out its source. Only if the source is trust-worthy, you can proceed with your offer. Just like when sending to in-house list, you must provide as much information as possible, including a call-to-action for the recipients to confirm their willingness to receive future mailings from you. Double opt-in is the best.

In either way, it is a great strategy to let the readers have access to sample of the second newsletter so they can read them up front before deciding if they really want to subscribe.

Also, you can include a postscript in your email or newsletter with short notice or invitation to help build your subscription lists from each and every email that you send.

Justin Premick of Aweber has an article about a better approach to convert shopping cart abandons to customers. I agree wholeheartedly when he says that a coupon or well-worded follow up is all that separates these abandons from your customers.

How do you follow up with these hot prospects without spamming them?

Discount and a Better Approach

The now-or-never approach lures prospects into acting immediately by offering a discount. Although this approach has proven to convert, there are a few weaknesses:

• It devalues the product.
• There is no way you can follow up.

A better suggested approach would be to prompt them to opt-in to a list using an exit pop-ups. This list should be specialized to follow up for shopping cart abandons.

You can get feedback about their purchase indecision or questions about your product.

In the messages, you can provide information to educate them more about your product or service and overcome their objections to buying from you.

Shopping cart registration

Another approach I have used and seen personally is shopping cart registration. This method forces would-be buyers to register an account with you before they checkout.

The benefits of such approach are three-fold:

• You gather all important information up front. As would-be buyers register, you have immediate access to their emails and other information.
• It saves product purchase history for the the customer. Customers can login to their account and see what products they have purchased from you. This information is valuable for customer support and also product follow up.
• Users can save and return to their shopping cart anytime they want. This is a convenient way to help users remind what products they have decided to buy. Of course, they may never return unless you remind them.

Using this method, if 24 hours since registration, a user had not decided to buy or otherwise, you want to follow up and sell the benefits to her. This helps conversion rate.

For registered users, you can notify them on items on their shopping cart that are on-sale, or any related product.

[Aweber]

The simple fact that sending unsolicited emails or spam is too easy makes the growth of spamming more or less unstoppable.

Despite many efforts from marketers to advocate best practices, they are still something legitimate marketers should concern about.

Is it only because of being greedy?

People are taking shortcuts to make money and grow their businesses.

In those crowds, there are people who simply aren’t aware of the problems they cause because of spamming. This is when email marketers should chime in and do something.

Here are some factors that could contribute to slowing the growth of UBE and UCE:

• The shape of email marketing industry, which has grown to the level that email service is easily available and affordable to even home and small businesses.
• Access to information and education. Spread the information to anyone who needs it. Sell on the benefits on starting slow and grow gradually with in-house list. Focus on best practices for renting email lists. Educate recipients about using email and stop responding to spam.
• The legal or law regarding email marketing. Many marketers used to think this is a be-all end-all solution to extinguish spam. It is not, but at least it prevents wildly growth of bad practices.
• Coordinated efforts from ISPs. Not only to filter spam messages, but also establish sophisticated methods to prevent false positive.

In short, every parties who are involved in making email a better communication medium should actively take action.

There are some issues that are causing controversies among marketers, ISPs and ESPs.

They will be covered in future posts. Keep reading.