The Council for Responsible E-Mail, a subgroup of the Association for Interactive Media, announced plans yesterday to release the first in a series of case studies on e-mail marketing best practices.
The first version of the new project, titled CRE Case Studies: Guidelines for Successful E-Mail Marketing, is scheduled to debut Oct. 16 at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference in New Orleans.
According to the CRE, the studies were developed to give e-mail marketers guidance in three areas: acquiring customers, retaining existing e-mail customers and generating list rental revenue. The project includes input from CRE members such as Bigfoot Interactive, Fingerhut, Message Media and Responsys.com.
Formed more than 18 months ago, the CRE has more than 50 participating members. Earlier this year, the group passed six resolutions for acceptable e-mail behavior.
Those resolutions said marketers should not falsify the sender's domain name, use a false or misleading subject line, or harvest e-mail names for bulk mailings. Marketers should inform e-mail registrants what their addresses would be used for and should include unsubscribe options in the e-mails. In the final resolution, the CRE simply went on record against unsolicited commercial e-mail.
