Posted by Drew Miller on July 2nd, 2009
Was The Container Store able to capture the moment in their Father’s Day email marketing campaign? Find out if they make Dad’s day, or things go up in smoke in the latest email review.
Posted by Dave McCue on July 1st, 2009
Earlier this year, SubscriberMail engaged a vendor to assist with an online advertising initiative. Just a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from this vendor that—despite containing elements of personalization, such as my name and company name—amounted to little more than a “canned” message that may as well have been aimed at a total stranger.
Even worse than the “infomercial” style of writing used in the message was the fact that it’s From address was that of a representative I had spent quite a bit of time working with before, both via email and over the phone. Having already established this relationship months before, I was a bit insulted to be given such a generic sales pitch—as if I had never heard of or been in contact with the vendor in question.
A week or so later, this same representative sent me a follow-up email that, while still a bit generic, seemed as though it was actually written to me. So I wrote back and we had a normal email exchange over the next couple of days.
The moral of this story is pretty simple: don’t treat email recipients as if they are all the same. The original message I received was sent through an email service provider (indicated by the ESP logo in the footer), so it’s safe to assume that at least basic segmentation tools were at this sender’s disposal. How then, could a completely generic sales pitch end up in the inbox of one of their former clients (i.e. me)?
There is a reason the second message prompted me to take action, while the first message left me cold. While elements of personalization—such as addressing recipients by name—are a nice touch, they can’t make the heart of the message itself any more relevant when it is way off the mark. Combining personalization with segmentation gives your message a much better chance of achieving the level of relevancy it needs. At the very least, some basic list segmentation—separating clients, former clients, prospects, etc. into their own lists—could have prevented this type of irrelevant communication now and in the future.
It can be easy to overlook the basics sometimes, but it’s also easy to see why it’s never a good idea.
Posted by Nic Winters on June 30th, 2009
Welcome again to The First 2 Weeks, where we analyze 3 competitors’ email marketing strategies when it is most crucial… the opt-in process, welcome message, and first few campaigns as these marketers attempt to establish relationships with subscribers.
In our previous edition we evaluated the opt-in process and welcome messages for 3 competitors in the office supplies retail segment: OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples. In part 2 we will now investigate campaigns sent beyond the welcome email and preference editing options.
INITIAL CAMPAIGNS
Both OfficeMax and Staples sent out additional campaigns beyond the welcome email within the first 2 weeks, but there was a vast difference in timing and quantity. OfficeMax capitalized on the interest of a new subscriber by sending 3 emails (days 6, 8, & 13) spread throughout this timeframe while OfficeMax only sent 1 email that arrived on day 14. Both are much more aggressive strategies than that employed by Office Depot, which didn’t send a welcome message until beyond 2 weeks and the first additional message not arriving until day 22.
Emails sent by all 3 competitors had forward to a friend links and view in a browser links. However, Office Depot did not have a reminder to ensure delivery by adding to them to your address book - while their competitors not only had this notice, but also a link to instructions. OfficeMax once again stood out from the crowd, as they had a link to a mobile device version at the top of their messages. Staples also has a great feature at the base of their emails which displays the email address that is subscribed. As noted in past reviews, this can assist in reducing a subscriber’s confusion in cases of old email addresses that have been forwarded, etc.
OfficeMax has done a decent job of employing alt tags on images so that all is not lost when images are off. However, they employed an ever better technique within small sections of some emails (like this pricing section displaying deals on printers) – utilizing text as opposed to relying totally on images. However, in that same email this technique could have been applied to the main content item, using text and background colors/images to achieve the same look and feel without resulting in blank section relying only on alt tags with images off.
Another example of a partial application of this technique was found in the 1 message we received from Office Depot. The have used text and background color in the $20 off $100 section, but this same technique could have also been applied to the left half of the area just below that section to achieve the same look and feel seen here with images on.
EMAIL PREFERENCE OPTIONS
All 3 competitors excel in this area of email marketing. Each of these companies has included links to allow you to update your email preferences. While Staples preference center is very limited (offering only options to update email address and change format from HTML to text) the other 2 competitors offer a wider variety of options. OfficeMax features an “Update your Profile” link in their emails which leads to a page where you can update information such as birthdate, zip code, and most importantly which emails you would like to receive (Special Offers and/or Weekly Store Ads). Office Depot offers both a “Change Email Address” link and another link at the base of the email allowing you to reduce the number of emails you receive (the landing page offers a reduction to 1 email every 2 weeks).
Watch for our next edition in the coming weeks in which we will evaluate the campaigns of 3 new competitors!
Posted by Rob Ropars on June 26th, 2009
In 1594, Shakespeare wrote: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…”. Although some words may be better than others to convey the meaning of a marketing term, resistance to change can keep lesser-qualified words in place. Take for example the word “open.”
It would seem to be an easy thing to understand. A door is open or closed (unless it’s ajar-sorry old joke), accounts are open or not, etc. When it comes to email marketing, “open” doesn’t manage to fully define what we’re trying to say. Marketers (and those they report to) look to their Email Service Provider’s reporting data to quantify the success of a campaign.
This includes various metrics including: delivery, opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes. Savvy marketers know to review not only the immediate results, but performance over time, against similar prior campaigns, and web analytic/ROI data. This provides a fuller measure of how an email performed during its life.
One statistic in the email realm has always tended to raise eyebrows-the open rate. For an ESP, this is currently measured by someone viewing messages in an HTML email. This sounds like a simple process, but there is a catch. It has become commonplace for email clients to have images off by default. Your recipients must take an action to enable images in order to see them. This not only impacts how you should be designing campaigns, but how you interpret the results.
Industry figures vary, but the average “open” rate is often in the 20-25% range. I’ve spoken to several clients over the years needing to reconfirm the meaning of their results after they had presented campaign data internally. If you’re open rate was 20%, an assumption is made that 80% of your list didn’t open the email (i.e. the opposite). Nothing could be further from the truth, but as they say perception is reality.
Posted by Mike Ferguson on June 25th, 2009
Ok, I had to keep the word relevance out of the title of this post, as I didn’t want to stereotype myself and be YAEMOAS (yet another email marketer on a soapbox). However, after having recently returned from Boston and spending a few days 100% immersed in the world of retailers at the Internet Retailer Conference, I must say it reinforces a few things.
No arguing, times are tough for retailers — just ask Eddie Bauer. I heard a quote floating around last week that “even is the new growth.” While you may or may not agree with that, and that would most likely depend on your business model and industry, we can all agree times have been easier. But as with any change, there is opportunity hidden in the shifting landscape. The silver-lining theme of this year’s conference was “Rising Above — Not Just Surviving the Economic Storm.”
Prior to my presentation at the workshops, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different attendees, exhibitors, and sit in on some other presentations. There was an obvious focus on relevance with people exploring and asking about how to improve results and get much needed lifts in email metrics that would directly correlate to dollars. I can’t say I’ve been to a conference in a long time where all of the attendees seemed as legitimately interested in the show’s content as they were in getting out of the office for a few days.
In his presentation, Jack Love of Internet Retailer, shared some revealing metrics regarding the growth of e-retail channels over the past two years. And while the rate of growth has declined, overall, there is still growth in the e-retail channel. However, most of the growth came from the top 50 companies. And within the top 5 e-retail growth were two very familiar names: Amazon and Apple.
Posted by George Palatine on June 24th, 2009
I wrote a blog post a few weeks back regarding the scottsinsider promotional program. In this post—titled “You Had Me At Welcome”—I described how, after signing up for this program, I never heard from Scotts again.
Since that post I have now received 2 emails from Scotts regarding the scottsinsider promotion. One was a reminder to visit the site often since they add new content weekly (see below).
And the second (about a week later) was promoting a new “how-to” video that was just added to the site (see below).
I first want to say kudos to Scotts for stepping up their efforts. I am not sure why it took so long but I am glad to see they are making progress. Unfortunately I think they could still use some improvement. For example take a look at what the email promoting the video looks like with images off (see below). Yes, the message is intact, but note that there is no link to the video now? The only link in the message was embedded in the image itself. This will require extra steps for recipients should they want to take action and, more importantly for marketers, it eliminates the ability to preform any click tracking/reporting because there are no live links to follow.
I also do not recommend making your unsubscribe option such a focal point of the message. Yes, it needs to be conspicuous according to CAN-SPAM but there are far more discrete means of accomplishing this in the footer area. Additionally their unsubscribe process opens your email client and requires you to send them an email request. Modern tools have made unsubscribing much easier for the users and will reduce the possibility of errors on the back-end. Lastly on the topic of CAN-SPAM, there is no physical address listed for the sender included in this message, a clear requirement.
This program shows some signs of improvement but still needs a little help. Correcting basic best practices regarding image optimization and CAN-SPAM compliance should be addressed immediately. In addition, some consideration should be taken to improve the program’s overall strategy, timeliness and more clearly defined calls-to-action.
Posted by Bill Leming on June 22nd, 2009
When I think of “large companies” what comes to mind are multi-layered enterprises that typically consist of various organizational divisions each of which has its own set of management objectives, strategies and tactics. To the extent that each division has a specific need and a desire to promote its products and services via email with varying degrees of urgency, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a pressing need for centralized cat control. Without it chaos reigns.
This isn’t terribly different from brand management’s responsibility to create/identify the brand, communicate the rules surrounding its use, monitor how the rules are being followed and enforce compliance. More typical than not such an individual and, in some cases whole departments have clearly defined email responsibility within large companies. And, given the ability of any one division or group to pollute the pond for everyone else, well they should.
Like those responsible for brand compliance, it is up to the enterprise email manager to establish and communicate the email marketing rules to which everyone will adhere. These include who will be added to the opt-in list (and equally important, who will not), whether the company will use single or double opt-in, under what specific circumstances trade show attendees/verbal opt-ins will be added (or not added), how frequently the enterprise will communicate with any one individual within a given timeframe, what each and every email will include in terms of the subject line, from address not to mention graphic design and content and a myriad of other rules. All of these are designed to collectively ensure corporate compliance with both CAN SPAM and email best practices, as well as to create synergy and advance a collective voice through message uniformity and consistency.
So where does this control start? I think it starts with a corporate commitment to recognize the need and to assign both the responsibility and the authority for all email within the enterprise to one individual. Management has no difficulty doing so with respect to its brand largely because of the brand value itself, because that’s what brand managers have demanded and because doing so increases ROI. While each of these same reasons apply to email responsibility assignment within large companies, we can also add in that assigning ultimate responsibility for all email to one individual will also reduce the risk of getting blocked, blacklisted and/or sued.
At the risk of self-promotion, the channel solution we provide does more than simply help our clients monitor compliance with the rules they’ve established. By controlling images and content across all divisions and downward within divisions in fixed, locked-down formats it ensures email, brand and regulatory compliance. That in turn allows our clients more time to deal with their cats who, in true feline fashion, always want to test the bounds of email propriety, best practices and legislation.
Posted by Drew Miller on June 19th, 2009
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Marketing Profs 2009 B2B Forum in Boston, MA. Working with email marketers in short, 20 minute intervals – what was aptly termed “therapy sessions”, I learned quite a bit about some of the biggest pain points when it comes to email marketing in the B2B space. The most recurring question was: “How do we grow our list?”
In the B2B space, email list growth is one tough nut to crack. It’s not as simple as B2C retailers, where customers are lured in with special offers discount coupons and other enticing promises. B2B marketers have to draw interest to their site and offer customers whitepapers, email opt-in forms, blogs, webinars and other interactive sessions in order to ultimately get people to opt-in.
Most marketers I spoke with seem to be putting too much emphasis on the actual promotion of these items mentioned above, instead of addressing the bigger question that lingers – fighting for your audiences’ time and attention.
Reality is that most business associates face the daunting daily task of time management. Between phone calls, email, IM, reports due, meetings and all the other things that make up our day, it’s a challenge for many to stay focused on one item without the constant distraction a typical office day brings.
When we talk about email for B2B it all comes down to two important items to make it all worthwhile: BENEFIT and VALUE. If your audience sees what they could gain from engaging with your brand, the more likely they are to become loyal brand enthusiasts.
Use email communication as a way to educate your clients and prospects – not try to hard sell them on your product or service. Of course there are ways to soft sell, but try not to put too much emphasis on it. The more you try to educate and help your clients build knowledge and understand aspects of your business, the more likely they are to engage with your brand and develop long-term, profitable relationships.
List building is no easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but by focusing your efforts around benefits and value, you are more likely to build an audience of raving fans.
To learn more about email list building, check out part 1 and part 2 of our list building best practices series.
Posted by Dave McCue on June 18th, 2009
Transactional emails are a great opportunity to request opt-ins, but it’s still important to remember best practices. See how Sirius Radio approaches this concept in an all new Email Marketing Minute.
Posted by George Palatine on June 15th, 2009
How does Go Daddy fare in an email review? Find out in an all new Email Marketing Minute!
new Digital Spin post shows how a lack of segmentation can leave email recipients feeling "strange": http://budurl.com/strngr #
