Posted by George Palatine on May 7th, 2009
Are you making your pre-header/snippet text work to your advantage? With a little testing, this space can become valuable real estate. Find out how in the latest Email Marketing Minute!
Posted by Drew Miller on May 1st, 2009
If you’re like me, your inbox seems to be overflowing with subject lines of promotions much like these pictured here (an actual snapshot of my emails received from Overstock.com). It has now become a daunting task to keep track of what the offer is, who is offering it and for how long.
Many companies in today’s economy seem determined to keep hammering these offers home on a regular basis with subject lines that use similar style and verbiage – or what I like to call “Over-Offering”. By using this approach, marketers are hoping to grab that one small fish in the ever-deepening email inbox pond.
Overstock.com has been on my Over-Offering radar for a few months now. They send out about 4 emails a week ranging in promotions from free shipping, X% off deals and (insert department here) Blowout/Closeout/Clearance sales. Are these good offers? Definitely. But that’s far from the point. Over time, that good offer that drove opens, clicks and conversions at the beginning of the email relationship, has now lost its luster.
If you get the vibe that your long-timers are feeling underwhelmed (looking closely at unsubscribes, opens and clicks will tell the tale), it’s time to try something new. Here is a possible scenario using your subject line – one of the easiest changes you can make:
• Group 1 (opted in 90 days or less)
Subject Line: “Free Shipping through Sunday”
• Group 2 (opted in over 90 days)
Subject Line: “Don’t stress about shipping – this weekend it’s on us!”
By using style and verbiage that older customers aren’t familiar with, you may spark a significant increase in opens. This can be applied to other areas as well (verbiage in your message, email design elements, etc.).
The bottom line: Have a customized approach for your customers during their different lifecycle phases. From those that just opted in, to your loyal subscribers of over 2 years, having a plan based on original optin date is a key aspect to a successful email marketing program.
So the next time you feel compelled to send that “10% Off Everything!” exclusive, once in a lifetime special email – think for a moment if you are Over-Offering. Your loyal, long-time customers will appreciate it.
Posted by Dave McCue on April 30th, 2009
Landing pages are the bridge and gateway to your website. But an ineffective landing page can quickly drive traffic away. Discover the five essential ways to connect the gap from email to website.
Posted by George Palatine on April 29th, 2009
Communicating with your customers via email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing channels a company can utilize. Unfortunately, bad email addresses that result in a hard bounce are a way of life for email marketers. I mentioned a few weeks ago about how you can use 3rd party services to analyze your post deployment in-box receipts. This is still a great solution for assistance in managing challenge/response triggers, identifying customers who reply back to your message or bounces that provide some type of forwarding information. But what about all of the others?
If every customer on your list is important to you (and they should be), it might be time to roll up your sleeves and do some low-tech list hygiene. The first thing you need to do is identify your hard bounce addresses. You will need to include in this query as much data about your customer as you have on file. Preparing this report should be quite easy if you have a well developed CRM solution in place, otherwise it may require a little IT assistance. (If possible include sales history so you can focus on your top customers first.)
So now that you have your list (and any supporting contact information) you will need to identify all the ways (outside of email) you can communicate with these individuals in order to get an updated email address.
Posted by Bill Leming on April 23rd, 2009
From any number of articles I’ve read and from numerous conversations with colleagues, it seems a generally accepted fact that total email spend in 2009 will outpace that of 2008 by anywhere from 15% to 20%. Obviously, like most generalities, much will depend on the specifics like to whom you’re talking, the industry in which they operate, the impact of the recession, the markets served, etc. If you accept that percentage increase as fact or close to it, there is the even more-widely held tenet that email marketing has far and away the highest ROI of any measurable media at our disposal today.
So we’re spending more on email because it gives us the highest return and, conversely, spending less on the more costly media that deliver lower ROIs. That seems to make sense. Stated a bit differently, we’re allocating more budget dollars to that marketing channel which is most efficient. That has me scratching my head. Specifically, it’s the “more” to “most” which is troublesome. What if we were spending most of the marketing budget on those initiatives that were most efficient (had the highest ROI)? That makes far more sense to me.
The answer lies in the fact that “efficiency’ is not the only metric that marketing must address. The other and equally important is the issue of “volume” in terms of units sold, revenues or profits generated, incremental profits produced, etc. Email may be enormously efficient but it’s nowhere near the revenue driver of say, internet marketing excluding email. So what’s the answer?
RT @DaveMcCue: Looking to build your email list? Promote "email exclusive" content on your opt-in page...then deliver on the promise. #
