Search results matching tag 'email marketing'

An email, by proxy

692072 — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:59:00 GMT

I started to write a blog post yesterday about the ethics of signing an eCRM email personally, even though the signer would have been on holiday at the time of broadcast. It was an interesting question, scuppered a little by the vagueness of the ethical dilemma, and thoroughly undermined by the fact I'm off on holiday myself later today with no guarantee it would be published before I go.

This week I read about a new service that's caused a bit of a stir, that will send emails on your behalf to loved ones after your demise. Very little different to what a Will can do, though I suppose more easily distributed and less focused on a fusty solicitor's office and family tantrums, and more to do with being able to say things in death not possible due to location, fear or convention in life. In the meantime you can also, of course, have someone pretend to be you on your behalf – though a big brand hiring a PR company to write the CEO's blog is clearly beyond the pale (and doesn't achieve the Groundswell thing anyway). It's much, much more effective and engaging to just be yourself, something which, for example, Jane Fonda does so disarmingly on her blog.

Next week it will be Natalie pushing the button on Underwired's monthly news email (so if you want to read a few thoughts on the Payment-by-Results zeitgeist then drop her an email to join the list – natalie@underwired.com). And then of course while I'm away I'll be vicariously sending correspondents my out of office autoreply... the realisation of which finally spiked yesterday's blog draft.

De-fragmenting digital

692072 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:17:00 GMT

- Most clients have a web agency, an online media agency, an online advertising agency... Some have an email delivery platform, or an email marketing agency, SEO and PPC specialists. And then the advertising agency or the sales promotion agency do tactical stuff (virals and vouchers, gobbling money to little useful gain). You might have some of these, or work for one.

Most clients spend lots of time getting their agencies to improve what they've got by 3%. That's a 3% better website, or a 3% better performing ad campaign. It's all, from what I can see, very tactical, very incremental, deeply fragmented.

But we're in a recession, and it's just not good enough. There's a huge opportunity to think again, to take stock and look around at what's possible today, not what was possible five years ago when you started on the road to improvement. Today customers expect to have a voice, they expect you to listen to their needs, observe their behaviour and deliver them relevant, timely brand-engagement-inducing nudges and touches, wherever they are, online or off.

ECRM offers a slightly different way of looking at things, provided you define eCRM as a strategic approach rather than an executional method. It requires that you head back into the customer data, evaluate all the touchpoints you currently have - the website, ads, emails, SMS, social media - and create a strategy that is designed not to have the most engaging website, but the most engaging customer journey. This way you become channel-agnostic, and digital execution becomes subservient to how you relate to your customers, not the other way round.

It's worked particularly well for companies like McCain Foods who've turned digital on its head and are now having a single conversation across several different channels. Brand engagement with brand resistors has gone up from 14% to 63% in ten months, which is staggering.

Using a top-down strategic view doesn't mean getting rid of your agencies, it just means they'll all be working to a single over-arching strategy, rather than just doing the best they can do in their niche. It means you get a coherent plan that can be delivered as usual through segmented email or segmented microsites, but is flexible enough to incorporate new channels (like social media) as they emerge.

All digital de-fragmentation takes is a little strategic thinking, but what it leads to can be revolutionary.

You should follow me on Twitter here.

Making eCRM sizzle

692072 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:09:00 GMT

ECRM is king. So why isn't everyone doing it? OK, perhaps the rhetorical excuse for a diatribe about how everyone really must start doing it properly is a bit transparent. Actually there might be a perfectly rational explanation, no matter how much I might, as a passionate advocate of eCRM, be wary of it. The answer is very, very mundane.

We've recently been involved in two quite big pitches, for brands everyone's heard of and almost everyone uses, both in transport. We've been drafted in as a wildcard – the brief's been about making email marketing deliver revenues. We've come in and talked about strategy and how relationships, customer journey cycles and touchpoints affect frequency of purchase and average transaction values. We've talked at length about the processes involved in mining data, creating simple customer segmentation then rich, layered segmentation (starting with sponge cake and aiming for gateau, I suppose). We've described processes for selecting email providers, deliverability consultants, analytics. And we've talked about the results – millions in demonstrable incremental revenues, customer lifetime values that go up by 3% (read: millions of pounds), over the first couple of years.

Looking back over these two pitches, which we didn't win (our normal win rate is around 75%), it's clear why. These two clients wanted to improve their email marketing. Simple as that. What we should have talked about was how we improve email campaigns so they drive results. We should leave the data stuff as a functional but implicit element - same as usability, or build standards, or testing. We've been guilty of trying to explain the thinking, not the practice. In old speak, we've been trying to sell the sausage, not the sizzle. Sure, eCRM is infinitely more complex than just email marketing... there are plenty of big projects that integrate segment-driven microsites, emails, SMS and e-commerce, all in aid of making the customer the centre of a brand's universe. But actually from some clients' points of view they may simply want to take the next step in improving what they do already, and that may be taking a newsletter and making it more relevant through simple segmentation.

And if we do take this approach to those pitches where the brief really is for improving email marketing, then perhaps we can take these clients and move them on to eCRM by stealth. If we can start with quick wins – the kind that generate sudden revenues - then we can go on to justify spending time and money on strategic thinking, segmentation and online touchpoints. In retrospect, we've been guilty of a lack of patience, and it's a trait endemic to the leading edges of the digital industry. So with (probably the vast majority of) clients new to eCRM, we need to start on ground that's already familiar, in order to help transform the mundane into something that ensures that it's the customer who's king.

SixChannels answers Why Double Opt-In Database is Important

2471706 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:26:17 GMT

SixChannels says Database marketing is key of success for the Sales & Marketing department of any industry or company. We all know how difficult to make a brand image of company in this competitve market. If we are using a opt-in datbase than there will be not much problem but what if after using the opt-in database we are getting spam complaints. This can ruin the brand image of company & also the credibility.

For this reason, we strongly recommend only sending permission-based email, also known as opt-in email. Double Opt-In Database Marketing can be an extremely effective way to increase visitor-to-sale conversion rates, build strong relationships with your customers, and turn your one-time buyers into lifetime product evangelizers who recommend your organization to everyone they know.

SIxChannels Recommends spam free email marketing for the best ROI & brand building in this online field only than one could improve his / her business to Himalayan heights. Opt in email lists for email campaigns helps the lead generation process a lot, just think of the response rates if it is Double Opt-In Database. I am sure it will do wonders to promote the products using email campaigns as an effective tool

Advantages of Spam Free Double Opt-In Database - SixChannels

1 .The best out of the email campaigns using such lists one could get

2. Reputation management of such companies lasts for ever.

3. Helps in retaining old clients as repeat business rate will be better

4. With your clients success your business too will reach top class level

5. Once you maintain good service badge as very good list provider you will get referred clients

6. Never ever you will be considered as a spammer or your website will get block list

Marketers Focus Technology Spending on Hosted Solutions and SaaS

2454396 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:27:00 GMT

Alterian's financial year ended on the 31st of March so I've been spending the last few days reviewing the trends in the business over the past 12 months. It's been a turbulent ride for some marketing technology vendors with a significant series of bumps in the road especially towards the end of the calendar year 2008 in North America; although there has been a surge in interest during the first quarter of 2009 as people start to focus their marketing activities on retaining existing good customers and making use of cost effective channels.

There is a significant downward trend in license sales for software companies that rely on high cost perpetual licenses with many in of the businesses in that sector finding their sales falling off the proverbial cliff. Software installed on site typically has a large services element alongside it and represents significant investment ahead of returns. So the theme for marketers appears to be out with CAPEX and in with OPEX. Hosted solutions and software as a service are definitely coming to the fore, such solutions offer marketing departments the ability to get the software and solutions that they need without having to go cap in hand to the finance director for a large up front fee. Such solutions mitigate risk while frequently providing high quality solutions delivered for a fraction of the cost and put in place far quicker than traditional packages.

Measurability and accountability have been key factors driving sales in the last 3 months, with direct marketing, email DM and web sites being areas where we have seen new investment. Making email a strategic channel was the subject of an earlier post of mine on this site and I see a set of key skills for brands to develop in order to maximise the advantages of the newer channels.

It's high time agencies started thinking of strategies that leverage the new channels' abilities for personalisation and one-to-one contact. There is a new type of agency appearing in the US market that is a hybrid of the traditional brand agency and the marketing service provider, this type of agency uses an understanding of the creative direction, the analytical approach and the enabling technologies to create a new type of customer engagement strategy. Indeed Engagement has recently become the watchword for enabling the multi-channel communication and individualized experience that consumers are now demanding. Denise Shiffman's Age Of Engage blog provides some interesting insights into this new approach and is well worth a look as is her book.

So my summary of recent market trends:

Focus on SaaS and hosted solutions using OPEX not CAPEX
Increased use of measurable channels like Direct Mail and email
Exploitation of digital channels to become more relevant and engaging by personalization
Requirement rather than desire for quick implementations and quick wins
New focus on Customer Engagement

10 Tips For Making Email A Strategic Channel

2454396 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:48:00 GMT

Lots of recent studies have shown that brands intend to invest more money in the digital channels this year with a recent CMO Council study showing that more than 44% intend to deploy new email automation systems in 2009 – this makes email the biggest new investment for CMOs this year, beating Social Networking into second place.

Making email a strategic channel is a real headache for the marketer, coping with the issues of relevance and maintaining a relationship through a channel that can easily make the brand communications appear to be noise or even worse: spam.

Email isn’t a cheap channel either – it may be cheap to send when there is no stamp involved, it may be easy to customize when there is no costly paper and printing involved, but that’s not the whole story. Each creative still costs money to build and that’s nothing compared to the cost associated with having a customer or prospect unsubscribe from the mailing list because your communications are not relevant; even worse, you could be flagged as a spammer.

So here are my top tips for compelling, engaging email.

1. Be relevant

It is vital to understand whether the recipient of an email will find your message relevant. The obvious part about relevance is audience selection; you need to make sure that the recipient is the kind of person to whom your brand or product applies. However, relevance may also be affected by where the recipient is in the purchase cycle for a product, how recently they purchased from you, what other products they hold or have bought - maybe just what they have clicked on or opened in the recent past.

Some individuals will react well to being sent messages on the same subject, others will not. If you are going to be relevant you need to capture all of the responsive data and combine that with your knowledge of the recipient from your customer or prospect database. This will enable you to select an audience that are most likely to be interested in your message right now.

2. Segment

Email is a highly dynamic medium in which you can cheaply and easily send different messages and offers to different groups of recipients. It is a total waste to send one generic email to every recipient when we know that different identifiable groups will be more engaged by targeted messaging and content.

Don’t treat email as a silo channel, use data and knowledge from off line systems to target your email communications as well as information on how a recipient reacted to a previous message.

3. Make it personal

Where possible make it personal, address the communication by name. Use the segmentation described above so that you can use imagery and copy that fit with the person you are speaking to. You might choose to split out your creatives by life-stage using a subtly different message for young singles, families and empty nesters.

If you are going to make an promotional offer consider splitting this out by different groups – saving £10 on a £150 transaction might appeal more to a younger cash strapped individual – whereas an older, affluent person might react well to a larger discount on condition of a much bigger order.

4. Avoid glaring blunders

There is nothing worse than sending out a personalized communication when you don’t have the data to support it in some cases. If some of your database doesn’t have forename make sure that your email template will cope and not leave embarrassing blanks!

Also, don’t make your copy or creatives too explicit and ensure that you have up to date product information – we all hate receiving communications offering us a product we actually bought the month before. These blundering messages damage the brand more than anything else because we are promoting a relationship and clearly have no idea about the recipient.

5. Say something interesting

Communications are better received when there is some interesting content, be that endorsement, gossip or some exciting piece of creative that engages the recipient. Recent viral campaigns like the T Mobile dance are exciting and engaging and a recipient that finds a communication engaging is far more likely to absorb other sales messages alongside the interesting content.

6. Make more than one offer

Recipients are more likely to consider a communication relevant if they find any part of it interesting. It therefore suggests that a “newsletter” format communication, with multiple offers is far more likely to be engaging than a message conveying only a single offer.

You are lucky if a recipient opens one of your communications, if they do then having more than one opportunity to be relevant is a big bonus.

Newsletter format also enables us to choose a series of best next offers for an individual and push them out around a central piece of relevant or interesting content, that is the main focus of the communication.

7. Test, test, test

It is vital to test out strategies on small groups and measure what works and what doesn’t. It’s also very useful to look for unexpected groups and segments who are interested or disinterested in an offer and use that to refine the targeting and segmentation strategy for the whole campaign. Sometimes we find niche groups that react particularly well or poorly to an offer or a treatment – email gives us the ability to exploit these groups rather than designing the perfect “camel” that has generic, but lower level appeal.

8. Measure everything

The email channel is a fantastic source of data – we can see when people open emails, when they click through to a landing page, then even measure the amount of revenue generated from the on line channel or impute revenue generated by offline sources. All of this adds up to create the best possible measurement of campaign ROI.

Email lets us see how a prospect reacts to our message in a way impossible with traditional direct marketing approaches – this gives us an unprecedented ability to tailor our communications and promote the brand in the best possible light.

9. Feedback and Integrate

Feed the email response data back into the Marketing Database so that off line campaigns, customer segments and models can be built using the responsive data.

Appearing joined up is one of the most important things a brand can do to appear relevant and aware of its customers and prospects, the email response data is a vital part of the picture of a customer and should be used across all channels of communication to inform offers and target communications.

10. Maintain velocity

Email provides a very quick way to build and send communications that are relevant to current events – perhaps world events, perhaps competitor actions.

This velocity is made possible when email sending is combined with easy to customise templates; now marketers can get relevant offers out into the market very quickly while maintaining the brand image and values. By being able to react quickly and push messages into the base there is a natural increase in the general sense of relevance surrounding the brand.

Top 6 resolutions for online marketers in 2009

809378 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:29:00 GMT

Just in case the ‘Obama bounce’ fails to cross the Atlantic and relieve some of our economic woes, online marketers need to look to their laurels and focus harder than ever on servicing their existing customers in 2009. Here’s my top 6 resolutions for online marketers this year.

1) Don’t forget Pareto. His advice maybe 100 years old now but his 20/80 rule is one of the ineluctable truths of marketing; 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your income so segment and reward them for their loyalty and help them become advocates for your brand.

2) Make your website as friendly and easy to use as possible and make sure it contains lots of information. There’s been lots of development in how to improve online experience in the past 12 months so apply the latest techniques to ensure your website is super sticky.

3) Be clear about what you want your website to do and make the calls to that action clear. Websites are all about funnelling people to a certain outcome.

4) Clarify your email communications strategy. The market is seeing a lot more email being sent out with brands more comfortable with sending out three or four emails a month. However be careful that each message is unique and offers something not available on your website – otherwise customers may start to experience ‘email blindness.’

5) Differentiate or die, as Jack Trout dramatically titled book has it. Make sure you’re offering customers something they can’t readily get elsewhere. There are thousands of companies out there offering products and services online but it’s the ones who personalise their pitch and have great customer service that hold on to customers and even turn them into brand advocates.

6) Cycle more!

Don’t Panic

809378 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:19:00 GMT

Online marketers feeling the pressure to maintain sales in these straightening times may be tempted to start sending out more emails than usual to their customer base. This is no bad thing, so long as the messages are right. However industry figures show that while volumes are increasing and delivery rates are constant, the open rate and click through rate are declining which suggests the messages lack impact.

So the question becomes not so much how many emails to send but how good to make the offer. In the restaurant market, the days when the offer of free bottle of wine would significantly increase bookings are over. Email offers need to be compelling and differentiated enough to make them worthwhile. We recently ran a campaign for Slug & Lettuce to win a holiday in New York that led to a big increase in bookings, whilst for Novus Leisure a campaign that offered Champagne at half-price let to them selling the majority of their annual quota of Dom Perignon during September alone.

When the email offer is good, the promotion significantly unique then customers will take action. If you make it easy enough to take the action then it will go viral. A lot of people remember the Thresher offer from last year, so long as you have control of the parameters and are prepared for the offer to go wild, the results can be spectacular.

Relevant websites: http://www.latenightlondon.co.uk, http://www.slugandlettuce.co.uk

Can You Be Bothered To Read This On A Friday?

980070 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:22:00 GMT

Just wondering when you find the time to read blogs, newsletters or marketing emails.

At the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco a few months back I chatted to Vanessa Fox about optimal times for sending marketing emails. It was suggested we'd be better placed and more engaged on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, with the "Monday mayhem" out of the way and the "weekend wind down" some way off.

So when's the best time to try and talk to you?

When it comes to reading blogs I tend to grab a concious 20 minutes everyday to find out what people are saying. I set up alerts with various engines to send me news on particular subjects and have signed up to about 20 newsletters.

The newsletter tactics are interesting.

One big network sends its daily, weekly and monthly at the same time.

Too much information! - So they all tend to get deleted!

One UK-based newsletter sends its email through in the early morning, probably because they think it'll be there in my inbox first thing in the morning when I'm fresh.

But they're missing a couple of points:

1) I don't want to read a newsletter first thing as I'm "doing email" for my first hour

2) They may be forgetting mobile. I read email on my mobile in the morning on the train into work. So I try and DELETE anything I don't really have to deal with so the actual day at my desk starts a little tidier.

So when is the best time to blog or send newsletters...........or better still when do you find time to read all this information?

Will you read this, or are you too busy packing the car in order to escape to the country as soon as you can?

It's all about the data

878512 — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:32:30 GMT

Following my post from a few weeks ago, Revolution have been kind enough to publish an article about Flybe's eCRM programme, which I spent a good part of last year and early this year helping to create. There's also an artitcle from marketing Direct which covers some of the same issues. Don't let people tell you data isn't sexy. It is.

(and yes, I know I've just contradicted my previous post)

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