Posts Tagged ‘email promotions’
Posted by George Palatine on May 26th, 2009
Does your company have an online promotion or email campaign that outperformed all the rest? Why not recycle it and see if you can recapture some of that success.
If you sell a durable hard good (products lasting several years) or a service that has a long repeat/renewal cycle (interior design or teeth whitening) you may not necessarily want to get back to those customers who purchased the first time with the same message. In this case, redeploy your campaign focusing on subscribers “post promo”. In other words, lets say you ran a special offer that did great in the fall of 2008. Dust off that campaign and email it to the segment of your list that was not exposed previously. (People who opted-in AFTER the original deployment date or did not open/click the original message).
For the people who did purchase during the last campaign now might be a good time for a re-touch program. You can promote add-on or complementary offerings to the product or service they originally purchased. Items like an extended warranty, touch-up service (as in the case of teeth whitening) or an additional accessory are a few possibilities.
Now if you sell a product or service that has a short re-purchase cycle (consumer products, restaurant, car wash, etc.) then resending this previous campaign to your entire list makes sense. Odds are they may be interested again. Be sure and test to see which group performed better, the people who now saw this offer 2X or the ones seeing it for the first time.
The biggest thing to understand in recycling past programs, is determining why did this program outperform the others? Was it simply a great offer/value, were outside factors like timing involved (a snow blower sale in the middle of an unexpected blizzard), was a unique list segmentation criteria used or was it just luck? If you identify what factors caused this program to perform so well, you can repeat these steps again and optimize your future efforts to improve your overall results.
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Posted by Rob Ropars on April 10th, 2009
Recently I stopped into my local Kohl’s store to pick up some odds and ends for a business trip. As usual, there were tons of great deals throughout, and that allowed me to put together a nice combination of affordable items.
At checkout, I was asked if I would like to join their email list with an email coupon as an incentive. Being in the email business, my inbox is constantly full with a variety of email communications and I tend to be very selective when adding to the fray.
Since I frequent this store and extra coupons were involved, I figured one more couldn’t hurt. And since it was near closing time as I filled out the handwritten opt-in card, I figured it would be awhile before the emails start coming…
Fast forward to the following morning. I opened my Gmail account and there was an email from Kohl’s! In less than twelve hours, my handwritten card had been entered into their system, which obviously fed into their national database.
I was then pulled into the next day’s automated welcome with a special coupon valid through the end of the month (in this case only two weeks away). Adding this exclusive, limited-time offer ensured I would need to be back shopping within the next two weeks or risk losing the offer (and on the back end gave them something to use for redemption analysis).
Since that initial welcome message, I am now in their main subscription queue, and receive weekly emails and occasional very limited-time offers for online purchases or notices for same day 12 or 24-hour sales.
Of course it’s all a game, Kohl’s basically always has a variety of items on sale. But when it came to the welcome message-I did go back in and use the coupon-a good deal is a good deal.
As it turned out, I needed a tie to go with a shirt and was able to get a more expensive one without spending much more than lower priced ones. Had I not signed up and gotten that email so promptly, I probably would have procrastinated and might never have gotten it.
So the moral of the story, which we share with all of our email marketing clients, is that you can never make a second “first impression.” Kohl’s welcome message program got our conversation started quickly and triggered the intended response by getting someone (me) back in to purchase. They got that first impression just right. Their motto is “Expect Great Things”-and so far that’s the case.
Of course being in the business I could note some of the things they could improve upon to maximize their emails, but I want to keep focus on the positive so I’ll refrain from undercutting what they’re doing right. Besides I’ve just gotten their latest email and looks like there are some “Last Chance” offers I’m in danger of missing if I don’t stop in again soon!
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Posted by Jordan Ayan on December 17th, 2008
I received an email from a company earlier this week that raises a an interesting issue. I have been a customer (and supporter of) ProFlowers for some time. I think they do a great job on both the marketing and customer service side (and have blogged about this in the past). The email I received is from a company called Cherry Moon Farms. 
Today I received a second one. So I looked back in my message folder and I find messages from them starting at the begining of the month on December 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, yesterday and today. I’ve never heard of them, am not interested in their gift and fruit baskets, and have certainly never opted in to their email list. At the top of the message however is a small note stating that the company is “a brand of ProFlowers.”
This message creates an interesting issue. Is it okay to email me as one brand, when I know you as another. My answer is no. There are many other ways ProFlowers could send this message and encourage me to opt in to Cherry Moon’s list. They could have promoted Cherry Moon within a ProFlowers message, but instead they have taken the position, of “ if you buy from one brand, you are a customer of all”. This is a slippery slope. Yes, you probably gain some sales by doing it, but you also alienate some of the customers who are customers of the core brand to begin with. I know the retail and catalog season may be soft, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot by overmailing (ProFlowers is doing this too, I have messages from them on December 2, 4, 11, 15, yesterday and today). Also, don’t assume a relationship exists with a brand the customer knows nothing about just because you own it.
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