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Member Roundtables & Advisory Committees

Change is not driven by one person. Change happens when a group of people work together toward a collective vision of success. The Email Experience Council's Member Roundtables and Advisory Committees offer the environment that fosters this collective vision. Each Roundtable focuses on a key issue in the email industry and develops ways to overcome barriers to success by working on projects that enable us to get to the next level, while the Advisory Committees support key functions of the eec. These member-led groups are the heart and soul of the eec community.

The eec currently has six Roundtables:
● The Clients-Only Roundtable
● The Consumer Education Roundtable
● The Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable
● The Email Design Roundtable
● The List Growth & Engagement Roundtable
● The Measurement Accuracy Roundtable

The eec also has four Advisory Committees:
● The Advocacy Advisory Committee
● The Member Initiatives Advisory Committee
● The Nonprofit Project Advisory Committee
● The Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee

eec members can get involved with our Member Roundtables and Advisory Committees by contacting Ali Swerdlow.

Interested in leading a Roundtable or Advisory Committee?
Read and acknowledge the Roundtable Leadership Requirements and complete the Roundtable Chair Application Form.

The eec holds chair elections every June.  The application deadline for the 2009-2010 Roundtables has passed.  Please keep us in mind for next year!

Clients-Only Roundtable

This Roundtable is chaired by eec member Kathryn Waters of Zinio.

The Clients-Only Roundtable provides a monthly forum for email practioners to collaborate on shared challenges and victories in the email marketing space. With the maturity of email as a marketing platform and budgets shifting to cover emerging marketing opportunities, we're just as apt to be talking about struggles with funding or business systems as we are to be sharing insights about email innovations or successful campaign strategies.

This team provides candid counsel to each other about opportunities and accomplishments, as well as problems and failures. We become a small network of email marketing pros who share our expertise openly and candidly with each other. And we provide the vendor and agency members of eec a set of seasoned and skilled professionals that can be tapped for input, ideas and dialogue.

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the first Friday of the month at 12 noon EST/9am PST.

Consumer Education Roundtable

This roundtable is chaired by eec members Jason Baer of Convince & Convert and DJ Waldow of Bronto Software.

There's no denying it: Some consumers are absolutely frustrated and confused by email. The goal of the Consumer Education Roundtable is alleviate that frustration and confusion by identifying and creating content and tools that help educate consumers on the most efficient and safest ways to use email so they can have the most positive email experience possible. The Roundtable will also launch marketing and promotion campaigns to raise awareness of these resources.

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 2:00pm EST/11:00am PST.

2008/2009 Project: To launch and create content for a consumer education website about email. Read about the launch and strategy brief.

Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable

This Roundtable is chaired by eec members Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity and Jack Sinclair of Return Path.

The killer app—email—is under fire by spam, viruses, and general mis-use. How do we preserve the credibility, deliverability and effectiveness of email communications? The Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable will lead the charge forward in identifying and championing gaps in the marketplace and the best practices in deliverability, permission, reputation and rendering needed to improve our effectiveness.

We'll serve as an essential intermediary between the sending and receiving community by fostering open dialogue, cooperation and agreement on acceptable standards. We'll educate the mailing community on critical issues that impact their email reputation across the customer lifecycle and across communication mediums through practical and easy-to-execute tips, as well as expert whitepapers. We'll utilize the eec as a forum for establishing a consensus on key performance metrics related to deliverability and reputation management and foster their adoption across the industry.

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the third Thursday of the month at 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST.

2008/2009 Project: TBD.

2007/2008 Projects: Wrote How to Revive a Stale Email List, a reportlet that lays out step-by-step how to salvage stale lists and actively prune lists before too many inactives build up. Read about what happens if you don't keep a clean list. A "Deliverability Resource Guide" will also be released soon.
Chairs: eec members Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity and Andy Goldman of Ogilvy

2006/2007 Project: State of Email Metrics, a survey and report on the industry's inconsistencies in how it defines bouncebacks and other key email metrics. Report released February 2007. Cost: $59 for non-members, at a discount for silver and gold members, and for free for platinum members.
Chairs: eec members Deirdre Baird of Pivotal Veracity and Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity

Email Design Roundtable

This Roundtable is chaired by eec members Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon and Megan Walsh of Williams-Sonoma.

The Email Design Roundtable is focused on determining industry leading design tactics that create rich and profitable customer relationships through email.

Email has forever changed the world of design. It has pushed us into thinking differently about what defines a successfully designed campaign. This roundtable is dedicated to pushing the world of creativity into a world of measurable results. Please join us as we collectively lead our industry in the creation of innovative design solutions, best practices and email stewardship for the global design community.

Roundtable initiatives will focus on combining the art of design and science of analytics. Together we will guide our industry on how to best utilize database marketing techniques for determining individualized and evolutionary design strategies. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how behavioral indicators can be used for establishing design tactics such as image placement, copywrite direction and much more.

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the third Wednesday of the month at 4pm EST/1pm PST.

2008/2009 Project: Released six Email Checklists: Code QA Testing, Email Design, Landing Page, Welcome Email, Creative A/B Testing, and Email Program Review.

2007/2008 Projects: Created three Email Checklists—the Code QA Testing Checklist, Email Design Checklist and Welcome Email Checklist—and posted Email Design Checklists Save the Day: Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Put Your Welcome Message to Work with the Welcome Message Checklist on the Email Experience Blog.
Chairs: eec members Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon and Julie Montgomery of Smith-Harmon

List Growth & Engagement Roundtable

This Roundtable is chaired by eec members Arend Henderson of Q Interactive and Nate Romance of ExactTarget.

Forget "big." A high performance email file is not about size, it's about engagement. The List Growth & Engagement Roundtable is a group of email marketing retention and acquisition practitioners. We will launch a variety of research projects, case studies and other email initiatives to illuminate best practices for building an active, engaged email file. Our work will help email marketers benchmark their own success, as well as provide a forum for testing exciting new ideas and technologies. Join us!

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the second Wednesday of the month at 1pm EST/10am PST.

2008/2009 Project: TBD.

2007/2008 Projects: Defining the value of an email address by industry. The ROI Calculator for Retailers is currently available for $49 for non-members, at a discount for silver and gold members, and for free for platinum members. ROI Calculators for other industries are in the works. Also, the Roundtable launched a List Growth Challenges blog post series, which discuss various list growth issues and how best to deal with them.
Chairs: eec members Austin Bliss of FreshAddress and Dan Babb of WalterKarl Interactive

2006/2007 Project: Value of an Email Address, a survey and report on the various manners in which marketers determine the value of an email address and measure success. Report released February 2007. Cost: $39 for non-members, at a discount for silver and gold members, and for free for platinum members.
Chairs: eec members Austin Bliss of FreshAddress and Stephanie Miller of Return Path

Measurement Accuracy Roundtable

This Roundtable is chaired by eec members John Caldwell of RedPillEmail.com and Luke Glasner of Rodman Publishing.

Continuing the work of the Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition, which merged with the eec in February of 2008, the Measurement Accuracy Roundtable works to establish standards around email metrics and promote their adoption. By establishing consistent methodologies and frameworks for the accurate calculation of email metrics such as delivery, click-through rate and conversion, this roundtable ensures that the email industry speaks the same language when reporting performance metrics.

Meeting Schedule: This Roundtable meets on the first Wednesday of the month at noon EST/9:00am PST.

2008/2009 Project: The Email Render Rate: The Inadequacies of the ‘Open Rate’ and the Need for a New Standard Terminology.  Get the document now.

2007/2008 Project: Establish a standard definition for "open rate" and for the various levels of permission. Promote the adoption of deliverability metrics standards.
Chairs: eec members David Daniels of JupiterResearch and Loren McDonald of Silverpop

Advocacy Advisory Committee

This Advisory Committee is directed by Jerry Cerasale of the Direct Marketing Association and chaired by eec members Jordan Ayan of SubscriberMail and Jordan Cohen of Goodmail Systems.

The Direct Marketing Association is a strong advocate for keeping all channels open for marketers and free of onerous regulations. As a member of the Advocacy Advisory Committee, you'll provide the DMA's lobbists with expert perspective on email marketing issues, support them in their advocacy efforts and develop outreach initiatives of your own with DMA backing. This Advisory Committee is your chance to help shape the future of email marketing, support fair legislation and to be the face of today's email marketer.

Additionally, the Advocacy Advisory Committee will take the lead on explaining how laws and regulations affect email marketing programs. The Advisory Committee will do that through conference calls, reports and The Email Advocate, a monthly series of blog posts on legislative and regulatory issues affecting email marketers.

Meeting Schedule: TBD.

2008/2009 Project: eec/DMA/FTC Webinar: New FTC, New Rules?  Update Your Email & Digital Strategy.  This webinar took place on April 29, 2009, was sponsored by Return Path, Eloqua and e-Dialog and featured speakers from the DMA, FTC, Return Path, Eloqua and e-Dialog.  Get the recording.

2007/2008 Project: Published a series of Email Advocate blog posts that discussed regulatory and legal issues.
Chairs: eec members Jordan Cohen of Goodmail Systems and Robb Walters of Costco Wholesale

Member Initiatives Advisory Committee

This Advisory Committee is chaired by eec members Stephanie Miller of Return Path and Joel Book of ExactTarget.

Got a great idea that doesn't quite fit into one of the other Roundtables? Want to lead a project that can be accomplished in a quarter? Think that a particular vertical market might benefit from custom review or data analysis? Have a pressing need that you want industry insight and support around? The Member Initiatives Advisory Committee is designed to facilitate collaboration among Email Experience Council members and work on a variety of initiatives on any email-related topic that promote email marketing best practices and help the industry learn together. Each quarter, we will embark on 1-2 projects that are short term in nature and have very specific deliverables. We will coordinate closely with the other Roundtables, and involve members to ensure the broadest perspective.

Projects under consideration include developing benchmarks for particular industries (e.g., publishers or retailers), tips for taking your email program global, and interpretation of various studies that focus on subscriber utility of the "report spam" button. Join the Committee and help us identify the best projects and recruit volunteers to make them happen!

Submit your ideas for projects.

Meeting Schedule: TBD.

2008/2009 Projects: Released the 2009 International Email Compliance Resource Guide in cooperation with the DMA.  Get the report.

2007/2008 Projects: Created a list of Email Marketing Q&A's to answer many of the commonly asked questions in the industry. Read the press release.
Chairs: eec members Lauren Skena of the National Geographic Society and Nora Lyons of American Express

Nonprofit Project Advisory Committee

This Advisory Committee is directed by Jeanniey Mullen of the Email Experienc Council and Zinio and chaired by eec members Chris Frasier of BlueHornet and Rachael Anderson of BlueHornet.

Each year the Email Experience Council chooses a nonprofit with an email challenge and assembles a team of expert members to help them achieve their goals. We think there's no better way to showcase the power of email marketing than to demonstrate its incredible return on investment in the nonprofit sector, where manpower and financial power are especially precious. Our Nonprofit Projects also provide members with a chance to expand their skillsets and network with peers—all while giving back to the community.

Meeting Schedule: Every other Tuesday at 1pm EST/10am PST.

2008/2009 Project: Help the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation get more out of their email program.  All the details...
Chairs: Chris Frasier and Rachael Anderson of BlueHornet

2007/2008 Project: Help the Women's Bean Project launch an email marketing program. All the details...
Chair: eec member Stephanie Miller of Return Path

2006/2007 Project: Help the Ryan Andrew Kaiser Memorial Foundation introduce email into the fundraising and news sharing mix. All the details...
Chair: Jeanniey Mullen of the Email Experience Council and OgilvyOne and Paul Beck of OgilvyOne

Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee

This Advisory Committee is directed by Ali Swerdlow of the Email Experience Council and chaired by eec members Kay Cavender of Silverpop and Lana McGilvray of Datran Media.

Formerly the Communications Roundtable, the Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee is dedicated to supporting the efforts of the eec's Speakers Bureau, which strives to spread industry knowledge and welcome new practitioners into the email marketing community, which is ready to help them reap the full benefits of permission-based email marketing and stay clear of pitfalls. The Speakers Bureau consists of experienced eec members who have committed to making themselves available to speak at events that currently have little or no programming about email marketing.

Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee supports the Bureau by helping it to:
• Find events where our speakers can do the most good;
• Compile resources (lists of whitepapers, websites and other free resources) related to each topic covered by the Speakers Bureau to extend learning beyond our presentations;
• Review speaker applications to ensure a high level of quality;
• Create a series of webinars addressing the topics covered by the Speakers Bureau; and
• Handle other policy, management and administrative tasks associated with operating the Bureau.

Meeting Schedule: This Advisory Committee meets on the first Thursday of the month at 2pm EST/11am PST.

2008/2009 Project: Raise awareness of the eec Speakers Bureau, secure speaking opportunities for Bureau participants, and begin producing a series of webinars on email marketing fundamentals.

2007/2008 Project: Launched the eec Speakers Bureau. Read the press release announcing the offical launch of the Bureau.
Chairs: eec members Kay Cavender of Silverpop and Rich Slater of AcquireWeb