Here’s another video clip from the Catalyst Investors Digital Media Panel last year. In this clip I talk about email metrics that we were using at Aspire/Interweave to measure the ROI of each marketing email we sent out, the value of a subscriber, and how certain metrics can be hard numbers. But I also talk about how you have to know the caveats surrounding these metrics and take them with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that Aspire/Interweave is a consumer enthusiast media company, so the bulk of our revenues were generated by readers, not advertisers. In that sense, we were more akin to an...

Ah, for the days of print gone by—when there was only one distribution mechanism to transmit information to readers—everything seemed so simple. But along came the Internet, and suddenly readers demanded our content via print, our Web sites and e-mail newsletters. Our once-simple content-distribution model suddenly became complicated, and disrupted the business models to which we were accustomed. My friends, we had better get used to it because the fragmentation has only just begun. Two major technologies have emerged that further complicate how we must connect our brands and content to...

Back on May 2nd, I co-hosted a webinar on effective email newsletters (produced by Publishing Executive and sponsored by Campaigner). It was at a pretty high level, so I didn’t get to jump into a lot of detail, but there is some good info in the webinar that anyone doing email newlsetters should check it out. Key areas that I covered in my part include: Content, style, and frequency considerations for B2B and consumer e-newsletters What to look for when choosing and email service provider What can prevent your email from getting to your reader How image filtering impacts your newsletter and...

Metrics continue to be a real hot spot for publishers and marketers alike. It’s become so much of an issue that I am collaborating with a friend of mine to write a strategic report called “Online Metrics Demystified: What Marketers and Publishers Need to Know to Buy and Sell Online Media” … or something like that. Be on the lookout for it next month. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a conversation that I recently had with someone trying to make sense of email newsletter metrics. They asked me for the definition of several email-related metrics. Hope this helps! What...