First Yesmail Client Summit lets e-mail pros share strategies

Coca-Cola Co. presented a case study of its e-mail marketing strategy as infoUSA's Yesmail clients came together March 1-2 for the first Yesmail Client Summit at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.

Attending were more than 150 people from 80 of Yesmail's client firms, including Kodak, Prism and Ziff Davis. The event brought the marketers together to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in e-mail marketing.

"The purpose of the event was to create an opportunity for customers to interact with other customers," said Mike Hilts, president and general manager of Yesmail, Omaha, NE. "Some customers think that they are alone in facing challenges with e-mail, but bringing them together lets them realize that some of the top brands face the same issues. At the summit, they can get helpful tips from others in the industry. The objective is to allow them to interact."

Dave Daniels, analyst at Jupiter Media, New York, spoke about industry trends and the usage of e-mail. SharVan Boskirk, analyst at Forester Research, Cambridge, MA, passed out scorecards for the marketers to evaluate e-mail content. She also discussed the importance of testing the variances that occur in rendering across various e-mail service providers.

Yesmail used the event to demonstrate product updates that have been added to its e-mail marketing platform. They included the introduction of an analytics tools and an artificial-intelligence component.

Yesmail plans to continue the event as an annual forum for its customers.

"The summit was a success and we plan to do the event again next year," Mr. Hilts said. "One of the best parts was Coca-Cola discussing their e-mail initiatives because it gave other customers a chance to hear what another marketer was up to. Perhaps next year we may add another case study."