TOPIC: Email communications – still alive and kicking

It’s easy to get distracted by that new-fangled social media stuff (so shiny!), but the folks on the ground in non-profits know that the real action’s in email. That’s where you raise the funds to advance your mission. That’s how you get people to show up to events. That’s how you get petitions signed.

There’s plenty of life left in email communications, and learning how to test, optimize, and integrate email campaigns is (I reckon) the best investment you can make in the online space.

Over the years my family and I have worked together to help my Grandmother get wired. She now uses Google Search, reads her news online, sends and receives email, and even uses Facebook to check-in with family and friends. Using the internet isn't a new concept to my Grandmother, though it's not really something she finds very intuitive either. That said, she understands the power of these tools, and relishes the opportunity to learn more.

My Grandmother also has a whole network of friends who are at various stages of computer use/online adoption. Recently, she asked me if I could share any resources for her and her friends to be able to network, learn and socialize on the internet.

Our domain got spoofed. The first indication was a ton of auto-responders in the past week that all got delivered to our catch-all email account. Most of these auto-responders were supposedly in response to our emails. But looking at the message header revealed a ton of emails with our domain name but unknown user names. TerimaddoxSilver@appropriateit.org, JennaeconometricGalindo@appropriateit.org, HenriettasuperstitiousLin@appropriateit.org, and so on and so forth. This is just a sample. We had 70+ such unknown users on one single day.

Setting up a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record is one way to prevent domain spoofing.

My colleague Eric Rardin just posted  a calculator on our Frogloop blog
that allows you to plug in your data and measure the value of an email
address. I thought everyone might be interested.

RSS to me is going to be the next email. Alot of people make the argument that "RSS hasn't caught on as much...", but I don't completely buy it. Over 65% of consumer marketing sites use RSS feeds today...that is a huge chunk of the web! Now, what I personally feel is happening...well, marketers are not sure what to do with it.

RSS is a great way to deliver content to your constituents wherever they are through aggregators. I personally subscribe to over 30 sites to keep up with the lastest political and nonprofit technology, as well as general tech and business news. Google Reader is just as great a companion to me as my inbox; I categorize incoming news, email it to friends and archive it for research purposes.

I've been thinking about beginning to more aggressively email people and organizations that I find on the web who I think might be interested in my podcast.  The conceived email would just include a short introduction and invitation to check out the show.

I'm sensitive about the unsolicited emails that I receive and this has me thinking, what is spam?  If I take the time to find people that I think might be interested in something that I am doing, and send an email to the person, should that exclude me from junk mail category?  What if I personalize each email?  What if I don't and just bcc every address?   If  the email is readily available on the web, does that mean that the person is open to receive  solicitations?