Bloggers Digest 2/1/08

It’s Friday again, and time for another link roundup. But first, I just want to go on the record here. I am an iMac fangirl - but I’m not planning on springing for a MacBook Air anytime soon. No, I’m holding out for the Helium:

Okay, now to the links…

• The first annual Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study tested and reports on the opt-out practices of 94 major online retailers. Included are trends in the opt-out process itself, opt-out alternatives, methods and friction in the unsubscribe process. It even covers the honoring of opt-out requests and CAN-SPAM compliance. Interesting stuff.

Key findings of the study:

• 73% of retailers sent no more emails after receiving an opt-out request.
• 16% of retailers give those trying to opt-out an opportunity to reduced the frequency at which they receive emails.
• 17% of retailers solicited feedback from those that had opted out
• 4% of retailers were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by either failing to honor opt-outs or taking longer than 10 business days to do so.

• Alan Rimm-Kaufman recently interviewed Jim Novo, a direct marketing and web analytics genius, blogger, author and online retailer. You can listen to the interview or read the transcript. Jim describes what happened to his online pet supply store when removing the search box, and why he doesn’t follow a “long tail” strategy among other things. This is really valuable for every ecommerce marketer to read.

• Jeremiah Owyang describes how Sony Pictures capitalized on the success of the Vampires Facebook application to promote a feature film. Do you think this strategy would work for online retailers too?

• BC based and world renowned search marketing firm Enquiro explains Google blended search, and offers 20 ways businesses can leverage blended search.

• SEOSpace drills down into 14 ways you can optimize your video content for search. And Manoj Jasra reviews Visible Measures, a company that provides analytics for video content, like how long your viewers watch video, how videos get shared and where else on the web they appear. Nice.

• Daily Blog Tips lists 10 challenges for multi-author blogs. If you’re just thinking of setting up a blog - this is an excellent reference while planning your strategy. I’d like to offer a few benefits for multi-authors too: greater range of topics and expertise, ability to create and post more content, and a blog is less likely to suffer from long dry spells when business gets, well, busy.

• Entry #2 from DBT is How To Write Scannable Content. The title says it all.

• The Reader Appreciation Project has a 2 part series called the Absolute Guide to Losing Readers (and part 2). Good food for thought for us bloggers.