Brands Must be Social Media Selfish

Are you protecting your social media brand? I was followed on Twitter last night by @trynetflixfree As a long-time Netflix member, I clicked the link to determine whether I should follow back. Much to my surprise, @trynetflixfree is a Netflix affiliate, trying to drive new subscribers via banal appeals on Twitter. I don’t begrudge the [...]

Email Unsubscribes – Embrace Those Who Reject You

A long-standing “success metric” in email marketing is the unsubscribe ratio. Like telling children that their pet fish is “just sleeping” the “unsubscribe ratio” is a euphemism. Your unsubscribe ratio is the percentage of people who receive your email that have gotten so tired or frustrated with your program that they simply can’t take it [...]

4 Rules for Good Email Design in a Cynical World

Email is the most popular (and by many counts, the most successful) of all online marketing channels, but it’s role and best practices are changing dramatically and rapidly. The excellent David Daniels, analyst for JupiterMedia (recently purchased by Forrester) wrote a report in July on “The Social and Portable Inbox” that underscores how the game [...]

Death of a Salesman: A resurgent Internet is transforming e-commerce

You’ve heard it all before, right? Circa 1998. The Internet, with its 24×7 hours and minuscule overhead is going to put American retailers out of business. It’s just a matter of time before operational efficiencies triumph over brand and physical location, and quaint stores disappear faster than Diamondbacks’ pitching. Well, it didn’t quite work out [...]