We were recently asked to weigh in on a relatively new and untested email program that a client was considering using us to implement. At the client’s request our initial discussions focused largely on the email message and more specifically on the proposed design including creative and copy. In tandem with these conversation however was the fact that that there were many other facets of the proposed pilot program beyond creative that were at least equally important to the overall success of this initiative.
These conversations in turn led us back to the somewhat more basic questions of what were the specific goals of the program and how would we know if our efforts were successful. After all, budgets had already been set, timelines drawn up and test structures loosely defined. Shouldn’t the program’s goal or goals have been clearly defined somewhere or at the very least, obvious to those managing it? While the answer to that question is just as obvious, not knowing what the real objectives are is becoming more and more common and more and more the norm.
In this case the stated objective was to see if we could generate sales using email and do so cost effectively. And as stated, the proposition itself was somewhat flawed in that the answer was essentially yes or no, the answer did not address issues of how much we could sell nor did it identify potential channel conflicts or possible operational issues which might arise. The plan was to send an email message to an nth name sample of the file in three different waves using a different creative approach in each wave. If the first message produced an acceptable result, we were successful. If not, then we’d have to act fast to help ensure that the second and third waves were successful. In other words as the effort was structured we had three shots and three shots only to prove our success. And that’s a recipe for failure.
The film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010 came with the sub-title “The Year We Make Contact.” Human space travel may not have advanced to the extent Clarke imagined when he published the novel in 1982, but the way humans make contact in the real 2010 certainly would have seemed like science fiction all the same.
Remember the home telephone? Remember writing letters, or simply paying bills through the mail? Remember having to actually speak to someone if you wanted to order a pizza? Technological advancements have replaced these things for a large number of people.
To say communication has changed over the first decade of this new millennium would be an enormous understatement and the speed at which it continues to develop is incredible, to say nothing of how widespread that adoption has been. At no time in history has the gap between the tech-savvy and the rest of the population changed so rapidly.
For email marketers, this represents a tremendous challenge. 10 years ago, the general public was not nearly as well-versed in the ways of online communication as they are today. This comfort level has definitely changed the email marketing game—which, depending on your point of view, might not be such a bad thing.
In honor of the New Year, here are ‘10 characteristics of email recipients in 2010. If you’re an email marketer, it’s time to realize that you’re not sending to a bunch of web newbies anymore.
There was a time when I was, indisputably, the most feared pitcher in my small town Little League—for all the wrong reasons. Let’s just say that if you were within three feet of home plate, you had best be wearing a helmet, or you might soon be wearing a fastball. It got to the point that umpires asked my coach not to let me pitch, because my taking the bump meant a long afternoon of hit batsmen and/or walking the bases loaded each inning.
But it wasn’t always like that. Early in my Little League career I was a fine pitcher, but one season I got a new coach who decided that I should change my grip on the ball. Being so young, I didn’t know that the grip my coach insisted I start using was a curveball grip. Suffice to say, not everybody can control a curveball.
My being forced to throw wild curveballs is very similar to the situation faced by email marketers who must contend with “coaches” who don’t realize the damage they are causing. It’s a tough situation to be in; defy the authority of someone who could bench/fire you, or follow orders and hope for the best. Marketers are being told to send more often. Marketers are being told to find more people to send email to, permission-based or not. In a survey SubscriberMail conducted earlier in 2009, one reason cited by marketers who were not conducting adequate testing of their messages was “a C-level aversion to testing.” If that isn’t bad coaching, I don’t know what is.
Occasionally I’ll come across an article in my RSS feed or a post to Twitter that says something to the effect of “Email marketing study finds that relevance is key.” My initial reaction is usually to chuckle and think of similar headlines, such as “Drivers report difficulty when blindfolded,” but even though the importance of relevance in email marketing would seem to go without saying, it’s something that can easily be lost when a misguided mindset of “more more more” controls the strategy of an email marketing program.
For a pitcher in baseball, the ability to throw 100 miles per hour doesn’t mean a thing if the ball isn’t anywhere near the plate. The story is much the same in email marketing; the power is only effective if you can control it.
A question came up last week regarding how to best measure the impact of a specific commercial email we recently deployed for a client and which, on the surface, appears to have produced nearly unbelievable positive results. While this endeavor is far more preferable than proving that you’re not guilty of lying, cheating or stealing, it’s nonetheless a challenge.
Anyone and everyone responsible for promoting the offer through the website, or via banner ads, social media, print and email wants to claim responsibility for the parentage of this genius idea and the attendant sales figures associated with it. So how do we “prove’ our numbers?
One suggestion that was offered was the idea of matching the email addresses of actual buyers against our email list to see how high or how low our match rate actually was. The hypothesis here was that a high match rate would indicate that there was a strong correlation between our list and those who bought and that either our email efforts must have been successful or that we had the ability to predict before deployment who was likely to buy.
Conversely, a low match rate would signify that our email efforts were less than successful. Without going into the various scenarios that might explain why this approach is less than logical and therefore less than irrefutable, suffice it to say that statisticians and most non-statistically oriented people will have problems with this methodology.
We were recently asked to weigh in on a relatively new and untested email program that a client was considering using us to implement. At the client’s request our initial discussions focused largely on the email message and more specifically on the proposed design including creative and copy. In tandem with these conversation however was the fact that that there were many other facets of the proposed pilot program beyond creative that were at least equally important to the overall success of this initiative.
The film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010 came with the sub-title “The Year We Make Contact.” Human space travel may not have advanced to the extent Clarke imagined when he published the novel in 1982, but the way humans make contact in the 
There was a time when I was, indisputably, the most feared pitcher in my small town Little League—for all the wrong reasons. Let’s just say that if you were within three feet of home plate, you had best be wearing a helmet, or you might soon be wearing a fastball. It got to the point that umpires asked my coach not to let me pitch, because my taking the bump meant a long afternoon of hit batsmen and/or walking the bases loaded each inning.
A question came up last week regarding how to best measure the impact of a specific commercial email we recently deployed for a client and which, on the surface, appears to have produced nearly unbelievable positive results. While this endeavor is far more preferable than proving that you’re not guilty of lying, cheating or stealing, it’s nonetheless a challenge.
