Welcome to BrightWave Marketing - Email Marketing & Customer Relationship Services. Keep Your Customers! BrightWave Marketing is an Atlanta, Georgia based specialized internet marketing firm focused on retaining and monetizing your most valuable asset: your customers. We offer customized solutions leveraging the flexibility and economy of email marketing. We also manage search engine optimization and search engine keyword buys on the Google and Overture networks, customer relationship marketing, CRM marketing, acquisition, retention and loyalty marketing programs and services. We also manage the creative, strategy, and email deployments for clients that utilize opt-in email blast and targeted mailings. List management and hygiene in addition to privacy policy creation and consulting are key parts of the offerings. The firm is headed by Simms Jenkins, who previously was head of CRM at Cox Interactive Media, which included sites AccessAtlanta.com and Austin360.com.

Q4 2004

Happy Holidays from BrightWave Marketing. Below is the Q4 2004 BrightWave Report. We have information looking back on 04 and ahead to 05.
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+ BrightWave Marketing and new clients are covered in MediaPost's Accounts on the Move section, a record of the week's high profile account and agency activity.

+ In The Atlanta Business Chronicle, BrightWave Marketing is noted for some key new clients.

+ On the eve of the election, Simms Jenkins, Principal of BrightWave Marketing, analyzes the use of Email Marketing in the Presidential Campaign in “Email Marketing and the 2004 Election”, an article published on iMedia Connection, a leading website serving interactive media and marketing industries.

+ E-mail Marketing to Increase in 2005
The IPT study found that a 75 percent of marketers surveyed believe that email is an effective customer retention tool and 51 percent plan to increase their budgets regarding email marketing.

+ DoubleClick's 2004 Consumer Email Study
This insightful study releases helpful data such as:

The average consumer receives 308 emails per week, a 16 percent increase from 2003. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of this volume is considered to be spam, versus 56 percent in 2003. Permission-based email accounts for eight percent of emails received, and two-thirds (67%) of respondents report opening at least six out of every ten permission-based emails.
Fifty-two percent were interested in offers for related products, 47 percent in information about membership rewards programs and 41 percent displayed an interest in sweepstakes.
Currently, more than half of consumers (57%) report receiving permission-based email from online merchants and from brick-and-mortar retailers (55%), with slightly fewer receiving them from catalogers (45%). In addition, 54 percent say that they currently receive bills and statements by email, with 65 percent of respondents receiving banking statements by email.
Thirty-two percent of respondents have made an immediate purchase online as a result of an email, up from 28 percent in 2003. A slightly smaller percentage (30%) have clicked on an email to find more information, and then returned later to purchase online. An additional 12 percent clicked on an email to find more information and then later purchased the item offline. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of consumers have redeemed an online coupon during an online purchase, while 59 percent have redeemed an online coupon offline.
Read the full study here

+ Email Continues to Drive Online Sales
Despite year-over-year fluctuations, overall email performance over the past two years remains stable with regards to bounce rates, open rates and click-through rates.
"Once again, this quarter's data reveal the incredible effectiveness of email as a marketing tool for online merchants and underscores the maturity and stability of email as a communications vehicle," says Kevin Mabley, director of strategic services at DoubleClick. "As more and more marketers adopt and abide by best practices in list hygiene and continue to pay attention to customer preferences, we predict response rates and conversion trends will continue to hold strong -- a great message for merchants this holiday season."

+ What Does a Switch to E-Mail Mean to the Bottom Line?
How to Save $50,000 even if you have a modest budget ?Get rid of direct mail and use Email

+ Shorter subject lines boost e-mail response rates, study says
To build e-mail response rates, keep subject lines short but include a large number of links within the message text. The length of the message itself was less important.

+ Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for October 11 is now online

Summary:
The Washington Post's email newsletter earns a high usability score.
It's particularly good at setting users' expectations before they subscribe, though the unsubscribe interface has some problems.

+ Google Ranks High in Press Release Mentions ?Get your press releases out and help your Google ranking- BWM can implement this

Los Angeles Times,(free registration) November 27, 2004
Within the cult of Google, no victory is too small to celebrate. Or to publicize. Echoing the giddiest days of the dot-com boom, small companies are issuing press releases that trumpet any affirmation they get from online superstar Google Inc., even if it's just a bump in the Web search titan's rankings. - Read the whole story...

+ Study: Search marketing prices vary widely
Data from Fathom Online and MediaPost found that the average cost per click for a key word in September ranged from 32 cents to as much as $3.17. The two companies are compiling an index to track the cost of keyword prices, to be published monthly by MediaPost.

+ Google search ruling ensure competition in the search engine market - Judge Throws Out Claim Against Google Ads

Contact BrightWave Marketing to utilize Email Marketing, Search and Customer Relationship Programs to build loyalty, gain customers and ensure a strong ROI in 2005.

+ FTC issues spam regs
The CAN-SPAM Act has been law for a year, and the Federal Trade Commission yesterday issued rules and definitions that refine provisions of the law dealing with the difference between e-mail with "commercial primary purpose" and e-mail with a "transactional or relationship" purpose. Lawyers will debate the meaning of the language, but experts believe the provisions are aimed effectively at spammers, and legitimate marketers will not have to change their business practices

FTC Defines Commercial E-Mail

FTC Issues Final Rules Defining CAN-SPAM

+ Ohio joined Maryland and Virginia in passing legislation that makes sending some types of fraudulent unsolicited commercial e-mail a felony.

+ Was Microsoft's e-mail message spam?
Some people who got it think so
"The Can-Spam Act requires that there be a clear and conspicuous" notice of how to unsubscribe from future mailings, said David E. Sorkin, an associate professor at the John Marshall law school in Chicago. "It's not clear to me this message even has one."

+ Permission-Based Email Marketing and Spam: Reflections 2004, Predictions 2005
In a few short years, email has proven itself to be a vital communication tool in the lives of most Americans and life without it is unthinkable for most. And despite the scourge of unscrupulous scammers, spam is an annoyance but not a deal-breaker for most users. Moreover, email users remain readily able to distinguish between spam and permission-based email, and they continue to find value in email subscriptions from responsible marketers. If anything, there is every reason to believe that the spam problem may start to get better, not worse in 2005.