From Germany, an email marketing campaign that wanted to prove that even online, when you use Axe, you attract a lot of girls. Basically the user gets sent an email from a friend with a link to a site, after visiting the site and spraying a little bit of Axe the recipient of the viral email receives a further series of messages from a dozen of young ladies. It's the Axe effect, right? But we have become so sensitive (and annoyed with unsolicited messages) that it rather looks like the spam effect.

You can see the video explaining in detail how the campaign worked on Ads of the World.

Email marketing could prove a valuable tool not only to sell products, but also to raise awareness on social problems. On Houtlust I've found a very good example of email for social: a campaign to support an EMSI (Integral Health Medical Unit) project to eradicate malaria in Burkina Faso.

The agency is Tiempo BBDO and the work can be seen and appreciated on their website.

What's the best day to send out your emails to customers? My friends at Eroi have just release an interesting report analysing the opening rates day by day and by list size.

You can download it for free here (opens .pdf).

Quoted on eMarketer a new research by ExactTarget suggests that the "best days for opens are not necessarily the best for clicks". Of course, maximizing open rates is important for brand exposure, while generating clicks is the key if the goal is conversion. The research found out that if you send out your commercial emails Wednesday through Friday you get the highest opening rates, but if you're looking for clicks, than the week-end is the best time. According to ExactTarget data, over 97% of campaigns are sent Monday through Friday.

On ClickZ an article provides five tips to improve the performance of email marketing campaign. Basically it says: be nice and be clear (about privacy, unsubscribing procedures, personalization options) and people will read your messages.

In the UK, BP has launched a viral video email to promote its Ultimate range of fuels. The petrol giant is targeting Nectar cardholders aiming at educating them about the available fuel choice.

The new Email Trend Report just released by Doubleclick shows an increase in the click-to-purchase conversion rate, which rose 24.2% (from 3.3%) to 4.1% versus Q1 2004. On the other side we face an overall trend indicating a decline in opening rates (from 38.2% in Q1 2004 to 30.2% in Q1 2005). Good news for what concerns bounce rates which were at an all time low at 8.3%.
Commenting the Report Kevin Mabley, Senior Director and General Manager of Strategic Services at DoubleClick said: "This quarter's data demonstrate the continuing effectiveness of email for communicating with and marketing to customers".

The solution to get better results with email marketing? Add a touch of personality! According to Jupiter Research, the vast majority of email marketers are getting poor results because they fail to target engaged customers, not sending personalised email based on factors like Web pages viewed, time spent per page and shopping cart abandonment. Futhermore, personalisation is usually limited to inserting the recipient name in the salutation, absolutely not a key factor in influencing the purchase behaviour.
Read more on Mediapost...

In Belgium Barnes & Richardson developed last year an email marketing campaign for Havana Club, to promote the "Anejo Especial" Edition. As explained on Digimedia (in Dutch) 15.000 email messages were sent to people aged 24 to 35 living in Brussels. The email invited people to visit a dedicated web site and win a bottle of the new Rhum to be drunk with friends at local pubs. Over 4000 users took part to the competition.

Email spam is a big problem everywhere. Someone is taking it seriously, some others just ignore it. In France it seems like they preferred to take a strong position against a plague with is affecting email marketing. Last week the Union Française du Marketing Direct (UFMD) has published a code of conduct for email marketers. It defines the rules to collect and use the email addresses to be used to deliver commercial messages. The curious thing ZDnet France reports, is that also the e Syndicat national de la communication directe (SNCD) decided to release or, better, to update, its own deontological rules. For the moment the two associations are going to come together to produce a unique document.
Who should email marketers listen to?

Black & Decker has appointed Mailtrack to create a pan-European email campaign in order to learn more about its customers and prospects. Mailtrack will create a series of competitions to win products and to profile people through a questionnaire. The initiative will run in Italy, Spain and France.

... Only in the UK.
According to a report by DoubleClick (Q2 2004 Email Trends, EMEA) which analyzed the email marketing's trends in Europe, click-through rates grew in the UK to 6.9%. The numbers aren't as good in the rest of Europe, where email marketing is loosing its appeal both to marketers and users.
Full research's results are available online.

Buongiorno Vitaminic has signed a deal with Overture to integrate sponsored links in its wide range of newsletters.
They are going to launch an innovative advertsing model, connecting contextual advertising and email marketing.

Dutch email marketing awards

Lateral: weapon of mass awareness

Sharp: ads for emails

Guidelines for Spanish email marketers

Email marketing will be back

E-mail marketing is growing in Europe

E-mail marketing isn't dead

Jupiter: email marketing ain't dead (yet)

Learn driving thanks to a viral push

Sweepstakes: the key to email marketing

B2B E-mail Open Rates Higher Than B2C

Avis to launch an email marketing campaign

The Instant Web Companies fly with Delta

The marketing power of RSS

Ocado: 'Be more demanding' campaign

Esure personalised email marketing

B2B e-mail marketing

Save e-mail marketing from extinction!

Successful video-email campaign by Land Rover

Newsletters: The Art of Discipline

McDonald's targeting McMoms online

New below-the-line campaign by Virgin Atlantic

E-mail marketing: clickthrough rates increase

DoubleClick fights the spam

Spam and e-mail marketing: it's not hate

Rich media e-mail: not a good deal

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives