Advocacy Avenue

Many of you have likely already seen this.  But, it is too funny not to post.  Happy Friday. (Thanks to Cheryl Contee for sending along!)

- Kevin

Green online activists have found a thriving online home at www.Care2.com, a one stop shop site for environmental advocacy, networking, shopping, and of course, blogging.  Care2 boasts 7 million members and counting, making for quite fascinating and powerful communities on issues ranging from climate change to yoga healing to human rights.  Once you’ve spent some time perusing one of the many spotlighted Care2 user blogs (if not starting your own), take a look at Care2′s own blog for some of their expertise on how nonprofits and individuals are leveraging the web to connect and make a difference.  And don’t forget to buy a T-shirt.

We’ve been seeing some interesting trends in the e-mail campaigns we’ve launched recently. Open rates for our messages would be high, while click-throughs would be significantly lower. Typically, open rates are higher than click-through rates, but a more than 10 percent difference?

Thinking that this could be content problem, we’ve done some content testing and tweaking to increase click-throughs, but the significant gap between open and click-through rates still exists. Forced to look at other scenarios, I had to dig deep to find what would incline folks to open an e-mail (mostly action alerts that pertain to issues of their interests) without clicking through.

We found that:

• As a result of the phishing phenomenon, some users would read the e-mails, go directly to the site and take action from there.
• Some users who receive HTML e-mails would allow their e-mail clients to automatically accept images from our e-mail, which would count them as an open when the e-mail goes up on their preview pane, but don’t read the e-mail (or worse, delete it right away).

Both scenarios are not entirely new to the online communications world, but what does this mean for the good ol’ metric, open rate? Especially when it relates to the click-through rate and conversion rate?

As I’ve been taught, the disconnect between the open and click-through rate tends to flag a problem with content, but with the open rate not as entirely accurate as it used to be, what’s the alternative? In addition to that, are there other metrics outside the typical e-mail stats that we should consider when measuring the success (or failures) of our e-mail marketing efforts?

A working alternative we use in-house is to compare click-through rates with similar e-mail campaigns. Taking the popularity of the issues being covered in the e-mail and other factors that could affect the click-through rate into consideration, there is typically a range within which click-through rates fall. Any numbers outside that range should present a good or bad thing, depending on the direction at which those stats lie outside the given range.

As for measuring the e-mail campaign success, the data should also include Web traffic and actions on the Web site outside the e-mail efforts. After all, aside from the phishing problem, many folks tend to forward – or even IM – links to their friends, and I would venture to suggest that there are other non-email ways to spread the word about your campaign. I would count that as an indirect perk to your efforts.

So going back to my original question: Is open rate obsolete? I would say “not necessarily.” I wouldn’t also be taking it at face-value as I used to, though.

I’ve noticed the LifeHacker blog hovering around Technorati’s Most Popular Blogs for a long time now.   I thought it must be for hackers and I never clicked through until recently.  My loss — this blog is incredible!  It’s about using technology to hack through life.  Hence the motto:  "Don’t live to geek; geek to live." 

So let the folks at LifeHacker offer you their tips, trends, and tidbits (about 10 each day!) and start learning the essentials like how to fix a non-booting ipod, how to clean your keyboard, and where to download free Sesame Street videos for your ipod.  I know – how have you been living without this blog??

How irresistible is this adorable peapod "casting" out his line?!  Certainly irresistible enough for the blogger chic series! This is also a great opportunity to turn readers on to the blog this T-shirt is promoting — the PodCast411 Blog.  Although it’s only three months old, this blog is certainly a frontrunner when it comes to information and commentary on podcasting.  Blogger Rob Walch, a podcasting consultant and published author on the topic, has done over 150 podcasts of his own available at the Podcast411 website.  If you get your feet wet, you never know what you might catch!

You are going to run a marathon benefiting that one charity that holds a special place in your heart.  Now how are you going to raise money?  Go door to door?  That’s so 1993.  Build a website?  So 2000.  Start a blog?  Now we’re talking! 

Runny has the right idea.  As she blogs about the trials and tribulations of training, the reader is more and more inspired to click on the "Donate Now" button.  Supporters are also encouraged to visit the RunnyShop to get some Runny gear as shown below.  The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is lucky to have such a savvy advocate!

Happy Friday!  I’m glad to be back after a brief hiatus from the blogosphere; I hope you didn’t miss me too much.  During my break, I’ve been talking with a friend who is working on raising funds for her community theater in Manassas.  I offered a few recommendations on how she can work it online, and in my research, I found some great new charity sites of interest:

• Kiva introduces a great concept of making a donation go the distance.  The site allows donors to "loan" their donation to entrepreneurs in developing countries.  Once these individuals have established their businesses, they pay the donation back, and the donor can circulate it to another entrepreneur-in-need.
• From the man whose name has become eternally linked to Six Degrees comes a celebrity charity site, where even you can become a celebrity donor.  You can get charity badges featuring different notables like Colin Firth or Tyra Banks and their respective charities to feature in your Web sites, blogs or social networking pages.  So far, Kevin Bacon wins the average gift per donor award with Bradley Whitford as a close second.  Folks, I think Ashley Judd needs our love.

That’s all she wrote for now.  Until next time, don’t forget to give to your favorite charity!  Have a great weekend.

It only takes a small step into the blogosphere to realize that Boing Boing has lot of influence out there and that co-editor Cory Doctorow has a lot to do with that.  This blog dedicated to politics, culture and technology can consistently be found ranked in Technorati’s Top 10, if not Top 3. Not bad for something that is essentially a running account of what Cory finds interesting.  But, the fact of the matter is, it really is all incredibly interesting.

So how does this person who is a published science-fiction author, technologist, activist, public speaker, and blogger keep up with it all?  Seth Godin, a fellow author-blogger-entrepeneur answered this question in a recent posting titled "How to be Cory Doctorow". 

sat next to Cory at a conference today. It was like playing basketball next to Michael Jordan. Cory was looking at more than 30 screens a minute. He was bouncing from his mail to his calendar to a travel site and then back. His fingers were a blur as he processed inbound mail, visiting more than a dozen sites in the amount of time it took for my neck to cramp up. I’m very fast, but Cory is in a different league entirely. Rereading this, I can see I’m not doing it justice. I wish I had a video…

Definitely something to strive towards next time you wonder (or wear) what would Cory blog…

The definitive portal for women bloggers, Blogher now boasts over 6,500 voices on their blogroll.  Postings are divided into categories ranging from Business to Technology to Gender and Feminism.  Interesting content aplenty!  But what is truly unique about Blogher is the vast amount of networking opportunities that the site offers, showcasing the power of online connections from blogging.  Job listings, sell-out conferences, discussion forums, events, newsletters…  The word community is in fact more fitting than blog. 

As 2006 draws to a close, IDI would like to thank those individuals and organizations who have played a role in making this year one of success and accomplishment.  IDI had the pleasure of continuing important work with many of our clients and the privilege of commencing new work to “do good and do well.”  These special relationships have afforded us the opportunity to drive change, build partnerships and have a significant impact on a number of important issues facing our country today.

We also want to take a moment to thank our exceptional vendors and partners who have each contributed to our collective success.  Their expertise and exceptional service have enabled us to deliver superior results to our clients.

Finally, thank you to everyone who made IDI’s December 14th Holiday Party and 20th Anniversary celebration so enjoyable!  The opportunity to reminisce and share stories and memories with friends was a major highlight of our year.

Thanks again to all of you!

Sam Simon
Founder and President

P.S. This will be the last post for 2006.  Post will resume in January after we are all back in the office.