Marc Ohmann’s Blog

Have you been noticing an increase in spam levels recently?  I know my spam folder is hit with hundreds a day not to mention the 10 or more penny stock ads I have to delete from my inbox every morning.  Well your not alone.  According to U.S. email security company Postini, 9 out of 10 emails sent worldwide are considered spam.  This number has tripled since June and now represents approximately 7 billion emails per month.

According to this article over at Information Week, by the year 2011 four industries will make up over half of the online ad spending — totalling $11.5 billion.

Not a real shock but the four industries will be:

• Media and Entertainment
• Financial Services
• Travel
• Auto

This reminds me of some content from one of my speeches where I quote a CMO from one of the big 3 auto cos as stating that 2 years ago 10% of their marketing budget was spent online, today 30% is spent online and in 2 years over 50% will be spent online.  I might have my years mixed up there but its the general idea.

Since ExactTarget doesn’t seem to provide a list of all variables that can be used in an email, I came across the info and thought others might find it useful.

Anyhow, here they are. I haven’t used all of them but they are pretty self explanitory.

Member_Addr
Member_Busname
Member_City
Member_Country
Member_PostalCode
Member_State
MemberID
MemberID_
NameEmail_
profile_center_url
Status
subscription_center_url
unsub_center_url
view_email_url
List_
XTDAY
XTDAYOFWEEK
XTMONTH
XTYEARMember_Busname
Member_Addr
Member_City
Member_State
Member_PostalCode

Popularity: 5% [?]

Have you ever sent out an RFP for a web project and been amazed at the wide range pricing in the proposals that come back? It is not uncommon for us to consult with a company who has received proposals that vary by an order of magnitude or more in price. It’s not that one company is wrong or one is right. It’s simply that there are so many ways to attack a web project and really your results are generally only controlled by how much you invest — as long as you are investing in each of the 6 areas below.

2010 still sounds like a long ways away but within a few weeks it is only 3 years out. Currently nearly 18% of all real estate ad spending is on the web — representing about $2B according to a recent Borrell Associates report. By 2010 real estate spending on web advertising will have surpassed newspapers which have been the longtime leader.

Hollis Thomases, over at Clickz, has a good article on real estate developers and creating a web marketing strategy.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Heidi Cohen, over at Clickz, brought a recent Direct Marketing Association report to my attention through her blog.  According to the DMA report, email marketing returns on average $57.25 for every $1 spent.  This represents the largest return on investment for any form of communication.

According to the DMA

“Commercial e-mail generated $16.5 billion in U.S. sales in 2005, according to the DMA. The organization projects e-mail sales to grow to $18.5 billion in 2006 and $37 billion by 2011.”

Popularity: 4% [?]