Retailers are getting savvy about e-mail sign ups, according to the third annual Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study, put out by The Email Experience Council (EEC), the e-mail marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association. The new study found that retailers are putting more focus on list hygiene, with 38% of retailers surveyed asking subscribers to confirm their e-mail address by re-entering it when opting in. This is up from 27% last year.

Restaurant chain Ted's Montana Grill has found that e-mail and a social media mix is the way to increase brand engagement and customer loyalty, and is doing so in this month's Thanksgiving e-mail. The chain has been working with e-mail marketing services firm Brightwave Marketing to run its monthly e-mails and social media program, including the most recent e-mail, which promotes Thanksgiving special, "The Real Deal" appetizer, entrée and baked cookies for a fixed price, discounted off of the menu.

Are you getting the most from your e-mail marketing campaigns? The following questions will help you out. How do you welcome new subscribers to your program? Keep new subscribers out of your regular communication stream.

Kaizen has been a buzzword in the corporate world for decades. It's a Japanese philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement and is engrained in the cultures of top companies like Toyota. Volumes have been written on this subject, but simply taken on its surface it's very powerful and inspiring.

E-mail service providers (ESPs) are getting more and more hands on with their clients. Whether it is CheetahMail focusing on its client services, or e-Dialog detailing its role in strategy for each and every e-mail campaign, it seems like the ESP is becoming more like an ad agency for e-mail. Following this note, this week StrongMail Systems UK has announced a new branch of its company called StrongMail Strategic Services.

Action sports brand Body Glove has selected Lyris Inc. as its e-mail marketing agency. Under the terms of the partnership, Body Glove will use the Lyris HQ suite to help manage its e-mail campaigns and newsletters.

When e-mail marketing began, the possibilities of reaching new audiences through electronic means and getting real time results made marketers absolutely giddy. Today, many of those marketers find themselves wondering why they can't raise their conversion rates. That's because those marketers define e-mail as a contact strategy rather than a key piece of the overall interactive marketing strategy. While e-mail by itself remains effective, its uses have evolved. Marketers need to think of it as one tool in an arsenal that leverages other tools and disciplines to make it more effective.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a person looking for a job. I didn't open this unsolicited e-mail from this unknown person regarding a subject that I'm not currently dealing with, i.e. Human Resources. Assuming that the e-mail was spam, I only read it in my reader without opening it up and found that it was from some alleged person looking for a job in an unspecified area. Again, pretty fishy, but not surprising.

Maybe it's all the back-to-school advertisements I've encountered the past month or so, but I thought it would be fun to give a quick refresher course on email deliverability. There has been a lot of discussion on the subject in the past, and I wanted to share some important suggestions to help you receive an A+ in your e-mail marketing campaigns.

Restaurant.com, a site that sells discounted restaurant gift certificates, has teamed up with ESP ExactTarget to run its e-mail program and to sell its offerings to the ExactTarget community. Under the terms of the agreement, Restaurant.com is using ExactTarget's e-mail tools to make its e-mail marketing efforts more targeted. In addition, ExactTarget clients can now add customized restaurant gift certificates as incentives to their interactive campaigns for wholesale prices.

Retailers, it's time to rethink your email marketing game plan. Today's typical retailer still relies on high-volume, low-relevance email campaigns to generate revenue. But this "batch-and-blast" approach fails to deliver a "best-in-class" customer experience that can build real, long-term value.

In e-mail marketing, reputation is everything. Users are able to make a decision about your e-mail without even opening it ? if they don't like what they see in the "Subject" or "From" lines, the delete key is never far away. Marketers also must contend with the negative connotation of "spam" ? consumers apply the term to any unwanted e-mails, even if they are legitimate marketing messages to which recipients have opted in. To top it off, ISPs ? always looking to streamline their networks and respond to customers' frustrations ? create their own barriers. Our experts examine the ways in which e-mail marketers can manage their reputation.

DMNews speaks with Peter Kosciewicz, CMO of The Eastwood Company, about the company booted its e-mail program. Q: What had made The Eastwood Company's customer e-mail pro­gram unique, and what changes did you decide to make?

One of the strongest advantages of e-mail is its ability to segment. DMNews discovers how the NFL uses e-mail to reach millions of devoted fans.

Growing an e-mail list is no easy task - marketers must not only be patient, but also adhere to increasingly-stringent opt-in and opt-out laws. Despite privacy concerns, building an e-mail list organically allows marketers to track customer behavior as well as target customers based on buying habits. DMNews asked two experts for their two cents on how to care for your growing house file and encourage those all-important opt-ins.

Marketing e-mail through mobile devices can be a challenge for marketers, who may not yet be comfortable developing messages for the third screen. Four experts offer their tips.

Are you getting the most from your e-mail marketing campaigns? The following questions will help you out. How do you welcome new subscribers to your program? Keep new subscribers out of your regular communication stream.

Kaizen has been a buzzword in the corporate world for decades. It's a Japanese philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement and is engrained in the cultures of top companies like Toyota. Volumes have been written on this subject, but simply taken on its surface it's very powerful and inspiring.

E-mail service providers (ESPs) are getting more and more hands on with their clients. Whether it is CheetahMail focusing on its client services, or e-Dialog detailing its role in strategy for each and every e-mail campaign, it seems like the ESP is becoming more like an ad agency for e-mail. Following this note, this week StrongMail Systems UK has announced a new branch of its company called StrongMail Strategic Services.

When e-mail marketing began, the possibilities of reaching new audiences through electronic means and getting real time results made marketers absolutely giddy. Today, many of those marketers find themselves wondering why they can't raise their conversion rates. That's because those marketers define e-mail as a contact strategy rather than a key piece of the overall interactive marketing strategy. While e-mail by itself remains effective, its uses have evolved. Marketers need to think of it as one tool in an arsenal that leverages other tools and disciplines to make it more effective.

Maybe it's all the back-to-school advertisements I've encountered the past month or so, but I thought it would be fun to give a quick refresher course on email deliverability. There has been a lot of discussion on the subject in the past, and I wanted to share some important suggestions to help you receive an A+ in your e-mail marketing campaigns.