This week we’re looking back on MarketingSherpa’s fifth annual Email Marketing Summit and what we learned from the over 600 marketers who came to Miami.

Take a look at our full wrap-up report with seven takeaways. It’s perfect for attendees who want to revisit key themes, and for those who couldn’t make it this year. We also published an article featuring Summit keynote speaker Joseph Jaffe, Chief Interrupter, Powered Inc. Jaffe launched his new book, “Flip the Funnel,” at the Summit.

Personally, I thought the Summit was a fantastic event loaded with cutting edge thought leadership and advice for running outstanding email marketing campaigns.

One interesting bit I noticed came from two back-to-back consumer marketing sessions where speakers mentioned the dreaded “list blasting” tactic. The broadcast tactic of sending a single email to an un-segmented list is thought to be an ineffective approach left behind years ago.

“Blast does horrible things to our industry in perception,” said Loren McDonald, VP, Industry Relations, Silverpop in a panel discussion. “But no matter how sophisticated you are, there is still some broadcasting.”

Although segmenting and sending targeted messages is a superior strategy, sending an occasional blast email to subscribers is acceptable — but it must be very occasional. The superiority of segmenting and targeting over broadcasting was emphasized by a session immediately following McDonald’s panel.

Joy Cropper, Director, Internet Strategy, Williams Randall Marketing described how her team transformed a blast-based email program for the Indiana Office of Tourism Development into a successful segmented program, dramatically improving results.

Cropper’s team surveyed their list with a $100 gas card contest as an incentive and used the responses to find segmentation opportunities. They then created three new newsletters and asked everyone on the list to re-opt-in.

They went from sending one email 10 times a year to three emails 12 times a year — increasing frequency. The result? The cut their list in half and increased their number of clickthroughs 10-fold.

For this week’s EmailSherpa case study, I had a long conversation with Eric Erwin, EVP Marketing & Product Development, Wilton and Tim Bay, Founding Partner, Shay Digital about the ways email and social media marketing can work together.

I compiled five of their best strategies in the article, available here, but there was another big point that I think is important to remember.

Social media isn’t entirely unknown territory for email marketers. After all, they’re the experts at growing an audience, creating relevant content, experimenting with message timing and frequency, and adjusting tactics based on response rates.

But there is one big adjustment that email marketers might have to make when launching a social media strategy: You have to be comfortable with the idea that you’re no longer in control of the conversation.

“The hardest thing for marketers is to turn over the brand experience to the community and let them define it,” says Erwin.

When creating a Facebook fan page or managing a Twitter feed, you have to avoid making yourself the center of the conversation. Instead, Erwin’s team has found success by listening more than talking, and inserting themselves into discussions when appropriate.

Watching customers discuss how they use Wilton products on Facebook gives his team new ideas for future marketing campaigns. If they see a particular question or challenge continually bubbling up from the community, that becomes fodder for a how-to blog post, or even ideas for a new product.

When they do start a conversation, they make sure to take a step back and let the community dictate where it goes. Yes, there can be some criticism of the brand, but Erwin says that criticism helps them improve the customer experience.

So while it’s a big step to take, it’s one that marketers must accept for a successful push into social media. As Tim Bay of Shay Digital says:

“We recognize that there is a leap of faith, but you can reduce the distance of that leap by doing your homework and then just diving in. If things don’t go well at first, you can adjust.”

Sometimes that leap of faith is so daunting that marketers just can’t bring themselves to make it – and they’re missing an opportunity. That’s why we’re dedicating the second day of our upcoming Email Summit to the convergence of email and social media.

We’ve filled that day with new research presentations, panel discussions and case studies that show how marketers are making email and social media powerful allies. You can check out the agenda here.

If I don’t see you there, feel free to share your own advice on navigating the waters of email and social media in the comments section.

Marketing and sales teams should work together to achieve the best results possible. Dave Mossop, Interactive Media Specialist, Expedia CruiseShipCenters, is no stranger to this concept.

Mossop’s team handles much of the online marketing for the brick-and-click cruise agency’s 2,500+ sales agents. We published an article today describing the team’s effort to support agents with customized marketing via email, a website, and a customer relationship management system.

One interesting tactic we did not mention is the team’s “sell-sheet” emails. Ordinarily, Mossop’s team manage email sent to prospective customers. The emails are customized as if they were sent directly from cruise agents to clients.

However, agents can identify cruises that individual clients might be interested in and send them a sell-sheet email. These emails are integrated into the CRM system agents use regularly.

“With basically one click, type in an email address and they’ll get a copy of what the itinerary is, what the ship looks like, a little about the weather, and it’s personalized with [the agent’s] information as a contact,” Mossop says.

You’ll also notice that the emails are customized with the agent’s contact information. They are just one more way that Mossop’s team uses customized messaging and streamlined processes to help agents save time and sell more.

You can find out more about how Expedia CruiseShipCenters combines email, social media and mobile marketing at MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Summit in January.

We’re currently accepting nominations for MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Awards. But hurry — the deadline to submit your campaign is Friday, Nov. 20.

Here’s the link to the entry form:
http://sherpa.EmailAwards2010.sgizmo.com

The competition recognizes the best B2B and B2C email marketing campaigns of the previous year — with a focus on savvy testing tactics, personalization strategies, automation, and creative that gets results. Think response rates, conversions and ROI.

Got a campaign you think is worth a Gold or Silver award? Share the details with us, and you could be among the winners announced at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit ‘10, taking place Jan. 20-22 in Miami.

Here’s the link again:
http://sherpa.EmailAwards2010.sgizmo.com

We’re always blown away by the caliber of the campaigns nominated in this competition, so we can’t wait to see what you’ve achieved in the past year.

The folks at PETCO  tested an email registration overlay ad that helped lift subscriptions more than 400%.

Carol Ott, Director, Finance Reporting and Web Analytics, PETCO, and the team used Amadesa’s Customer Experience Suite to A/B test the ad (and other offers) on the homepage since June.

As you can see in the image below (click for a larger one), the overlay offers visitors two rewards for submitting email addresses:
1. Chance to win a $500 gift card
2. A free shipping offer

“We were impressed with the results. We were testing offers that we thought would drop our average order value and were pleasantly surprised when it did not have any effect,” Ott says.

CompuServe, the pioneering online service, quietly ended its 30-year run on June 30. Current owner AOL made the shutdown announcement via email to its dwindling ranks of subscribers, prompting blog eulogies from nostalgic fans — and a little bit of snark from the peanut gallery (“CompuWHAT?”).

The news caught my eye, not only because I’m a former user.

I remember logging on to CompuServe to check stock market quotes and search a Lexis-Nexis-style periodical database during my first reporting job out of college. I also shared one of those now-ludicrous numerical email addresses with about four other reporters.

More relevant to the here and now is the notice that current subscribers can retain their existing CompuServe Classic email addresses.

The process requires subscribers to migrate their old accounts to a new, Web-mail service through an online registration form — but how many of those address will, indeed, remain active?

Subscriber apathy, user error, or technical glitches could cause many of those addresses to stop functioning. And if you’ve got CompuServe address in your email database, that could mean more bounces in the coming weeks.

So take a look at your database. See how many @compuserve.com addresses you’re currently mailing, and watch for bounces or other signs of inactivity in future campaigns. You don’t want to purge those addresses from your list immediately, but you also don’t want the ghosts of past ISPs threatening your list hygiene.

CompuServe Classic Mail Migration:
http://member.compuserve.com/mailcenter/default.jsp

CompuServe Eulogy from The PaperPC
http://paperpc.blogspot.com/2009/06/compuserve-classic-so-long-old-friend.html

Whenever a new technology or channel emerges on the marketing landscape, debate inevitably follows over its impact on traditional tactics. Not surprisingly, the rise of social media marketing has sparked questions over whether these channels will diminish the importance of email as a means to reach customers and prospects.

I recently raised the topic with Sergio Balegno, one of MarketingSherpa’s senior analysts and the author of our 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide. Sergio also moderated a panel discussion on Tuesday, March 17, at Sherpa’s Email Marketing Summit, titled “Long Live Email: Enabling the Continued Success of Social Marketing.”

Here’s his take on the issue:

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Dan Heimbrock, President and CEO, HyperDrive Interactive, had so many great examples to share about how word-of-mouth and email marketing can work together to create brand advocates that I couldn’t help sharing one.

Heimbrock is presenting a case study at MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Summit, March 15-17, and I had the opportunity to interview him last week about the topic.

He says often the only incentive that people need to become brand advocates is an opportunity to belong to something they care about.

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The database marketing agency Merkle released their 2009 ‘View from the Inbox’ email marketing report last week. The survey, conducted on behalf of Merkle by Harris Interactive, surveyed 2,505 U.S. adults who check or send email at least once a week.

Judging from the report’s highlights, it looks like consumers are more skeptical and demanding of messages hitting the in-box. However, they’re willing to receive email from a slightly greater number of companies. The report is free if you share your email address.

Here are a few findings:

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I recently participated in an email marketing webinar with Al Iverson of ExactTarget on the subject of email . As we discussed the importance of email reputation, an attendee sent a note saying: “I wish my boss could hear this…”

Pressed for more details, the attendee noted that his boss thought the marketers’ concerns about spam and reputation were overblown, and that they didn’t need to be as diligent in maintaining the integrity of their opt-in process and email preferences. Continue »