EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

As marketers, we think about campaigns and integrated promotions, but I am often surprised at the SOUR non-practice of leveraging other mediums to drive email communications and coordination with these tactics.  The biggest miss in opportunity is between email and social, specifically Facebook.

Social can and is used as a lead generation tactic, but it also does well as a branding and awareness medium.  Targeting there based on look alike audiences or against your targets or other interest areas can get prospects into your pipeline at an early stage.

I have said many times to my teams over the years that it is our job to get our prospects to raise their hands as early in their customer journey as possible. This gives us more opportunity to craft the customer experience from start to finish in a more personalized way.  At the same time, this helps push the competitors out.

So as we think about social for brand building and email to personalize the communication and drive conversions, I wanted to look at some of those businesses I've been watching over the past four months to see how well they are driving their prospects from social to email and visa versa.

We will take a look today at:

Pulte
Overstock
Secret Escapes

Pulte

First, Pulte does a SOUR job of pulling prospects in early in the process with limited "sign up" engagement and a focus on end of the funnel - getting them into the model center.

Their emails do have the ubiquitous set of links for social media on the bottom of their communication, and you can link there to, for example, their Facebook page which is totally generic, not market specific or having any relevance for me, the prospect who just linked from an email about a specific community in a specific market.

Also, one of the big misses that I see frequently is no links back to get email sign ups.  Really SOUR - their "contact us" link on their Facebook page takes the user to a service repair request - really?  What does that say about them?

Funny too that they take the time in their Facebook navigational links to include ones to other social channels like Instagram, but not to email which gives them the best ROI and ability to personalize the customer journey - SOUR email!

Integration Score:  D-

Overstock

No push to email from their Facebook page either!  They have space in their main navigation and offer a "shop now" button.  If you think about the use of social media as a branding channel, would it be helpful to ask people to sign up for personalized coupons and exclusive deals to move them to the next level  of communication? Do consumers want to go from social directly to shopping?  How many do?

We've talked before about retailers "blast" email practices - very SOUR in this day and age and Overstock is no exception.  It actually makes me cringe to see how many people even still think this way.  Most of the emails I receive in my inbox from Overstock are promotional, have no personalization and arrive way too often.

Of course they too have the social links across the bottom of the emails, but with no compelling reason to go there.

Integration Score:  D-

Secret Escapes

These guys have great vacations to beautiful places, but their emails are totally overwhelming with no personalization or understanding of what places might be of interest to me!  In one email mail I received they show me 44 different packages to such diverse destinations as Disney World and Bali.

Really SOUR - No social links, so skip what I said above about ubiquitous - I guess not totally!

They have a Facebook page and surprisingly ARE integrating from there to email.  A click on the "learn more" button opens a page and pop up with email sign up. NOT SOUR. They allow you to join with your Facebook profile and provide a reason to join.  They did not however recognize that I am already a member.  A simple cookie would do that. They could have personalized for me with a vacation of interest versus asking me to do something I already had.  SOUR!

Integration Score:  C

Todays Tips

-  Be sure to have a path forward from your social media presence to obtain early "hand raisers" - ASK for email sign ups

-  Give them a reason to engage in another channel (email) and make it prominent on the social space

-  Give more thought to how you position social media within your email communications

     -  What are your goals for integration?

     -  How do consumers interact in the channels through the customer journey?

     -  How to you proactively move your prospects through and between the channels depending on where they are in their personal journey?

-  Effectively use cookies, email sign ins and what you know about your prospects and customers to personalize every experience

-  Be sure to add the appropriate tracking parameters to watch how consumers and prospects move between the various channels and at what stage

Are you integrating your email and social presence?  Do you have a strategy for moving people through and between channels appropriate to their journey steps? Are you personalizing at every step along the way? These simple actions can help improve the effectiveness of both your email and social media marketing.

Don't be a SOUR emailer!

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

Some people call me a bit nerdy for a marketing executive and I think that is probably true.  I started
my career in market research and data analysis and it has carried through.  I have always been a bit of a whiz at using excel and data tools and have had the opportunity over the years to architect and heavily use data warehouses, data marts and large databases of information to mine insights and create strong analytics that inform actions.

Part of email marketing and CRM is leveraging this data for content and experience personalization. In order to do this well, it is imperative as marketers that we know and understand the data we have access to and insure we are using it correctly and effectively.

This typically isn't a top focus for marketers and is often left to the IT teams.  However, I have found that while these teams are good at setting up and building databases, they often don't have the insights on how that data is used.  Therefore it is imperative that marketers have a strong partnership with their IT support teams and insist upon and have input to things such as data dictionaries, field descriptions, field and data relationships and options.  Help your IT partners understand how you want to and plan to use the data they house for you and both of you will be more effective.

Here's a simple SOUR email that portrays how things can quickly go awry if you don't think things through and watch your emails in detail for things that sometimes you can't anticipate.

Situation
I have been spending the winter in Florida and was at my mom's house in South Florida for the holidays and realized I was out of the flea medication I use for my dogs.  I normally order from 1800PetMeds and have been a long term user.  So, I went in and ordered what I needed, but instead of having it sent to my permanent home address, I had it sent to my mom.

What Happened

The PetMed system somehow replaced my name with my mothers name when I input the new shipping address.  Now, both the personalized emails and the website experience are addressing me as "Jean" instead of "Sharon."

While I commend PetMed for a good job of both web and email personalization, they have missed the mark in terms of how their data is being updated and stored.  An example of someone who does an excellent job at that is Amazon.  My daughter and her boyfriend use my Prime account and so often we are all ordering different things at the same time with multiple billing and shipping options.  We have 13 different options in our address book and almost as many billing options.  They successfully allow us to manage all these and keep the data organized in our account.

TIPS

-  Try to think of all the alternate ways people might order from you and make sure your database can handle it. 

-  Have an audit process to check accounts and emails for anomalies and changes that can inform your teams of potential data issues like the one I experienced with 1800PetMeds.

-  Insist upon good data documentation for the data you have and use.

-  Build a strong partnership with your IT teams so they understand what you are trying to do.

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

I'm moving on to a topic that is relevant to my week this week.  I had the opportunity to spend some time at the National Association of Builders International Builders Show (NAHB-IBS) in Orlando this week. This is the biggest conference for builders where you can find virtually everything related to building and companies who support builders and the construction industry.

There are lots of booths for products like balconies and patios, kitchen and bath, estimating and production and lots more. There are also marketing providers and lots of content sessions for education and growth.  There is content for 55+ building, custom builders, design, multi-family and lots more.

And there were some marketing topics like "A Builders Guide to Killer Content," "Analytics for Builders...," and "Extreme Makeover Live:  Social Media."  However, there were no sessions on email marketing or strategy and how to use this simple tool to drive sales.  There were a few sessions that danced around email like "The Builder Sales Machine:  Focus on Leads to Capture and Convert More Sales," but email strategy does not seem to be top of mind.

The Direct Marketing Association says the ROI of email marketing is 38 to 1 and others say it is even higher.  I found a good article from Chad White that explains why marketers tend to under invest in this proven tactic.  So while not good news, it appears the building industry is not alone in the lack of focus and investment in email marketing and strategy.

So why is the building industry so SOUR on email marketing?  I find it interesting how little builders even focus on this important tool.  Many of them appear to have no strategy and simply place a "contact us" often hidden or not strategically placed with no compelling reason for people to engage.  I spoke of some of the challenges of the Pulte sign up and communication that I've been tracking in recent weeks and am not impressed.  While the volume of emails (in the account I am actually receiving them) is not overwhelming, there appears to be no personalization and all the communications are about them and not me.

So on my quest to better understand this, I have a meeting next week with a member of the local home building community and I will be asking her for thoughts.  I will provide an update after that and will also be compiling a questionnaire and checklist of email marketing practices to see if we can get to the answer and start helping this community become SWEET, not SOUR email marketers.

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

Happy New Year to all.  Hope the holidays treated you well and all the gifts and new year cheer are in order (or at least returned for something you want!).

We are now in about week 3 of my email sign up tracking.  I'm working my personas with Bealls to see what is happening.  More on that below.

Pulte

Pulte still hasn't sent me anything since my original sign up for my Yahoo account, so I guess they don't want to sell any houses to that person or they have some deliverability issues with Yahoo that aren''t being addressed - SOUR email either way!  Although I did see a sponsored ad - more SOUR email.  Not only are they not using the information they have, they are paying even more to put ads in front of me when they could be talking to me personally!

They have sent me two emails to my Gmail account, but both are generic with no personalization. One was for a design center open house.  It was mailed 12/14 for the event on 12/15.  They probably could have provided a bit more notice.  Wonder how that open house did.  The second was for new homes in Fish Hawk Ranch.  I believe I did look at this community, but not sure and my profile doesn't capture the information I provided them (which was homes in the $300k range not a specific community). This community starts at the $200s, so I'm not sure if they just didn't listen or if this is just a generic community email that everyone received.  I did go look at the community again and even clicked on the email to see if I can influence their future emails to me.

Bealls

Under my Yahoo account which is a Millennial male, I've been looking at hoodies and water shoes.

My Gmail persona is looking for sexy nightgowns and sheets for the bed.

Bealls continues to send me at least one email a day, mostly promotional with limited personalization.  I think this is excessive.  I'd suggest some testing of timing and frequency to see if reducing frequency can impact performance in terms of unsubscribes, click throughs and ultimately revenue.  Check out this test from July 2015 where the overall winner was a promotional email sent once a week versus twice.  The learnings:

- always test
- know your customers and prospects
- segment for differing behaviors

They are sending abandon cart emails, so that is good.  They also are using some level of site behavior in emails, but it is not working properly as when I clicked on an email within my Yahoo account, it showed me the nightgowns I looked at when logged in under my gmail account.  I also looked at the sheets after the nightgowns, so not sure why it defaulted to the first thing rather than the last, or better yet, how about showing me all the items I looked at.  It appears the system is using cookies rather than a CRM that knows more about me specifically (at that email address) rather than just watching the computer clicks.

WFLA

Still no emails at all to my Yahoo account - boo for you!

Gmail is receiving emails, also delivered to my promotional folder.  Funny thing is that I am getting the weather alerts - two per day.  I can't tell why I am getting two and the headlines seem to be different in each.  Didn't think weather would change that much and that I needed to be updated twice a day.  Not sure what is up with that.

Also, couldn't they just add "Sharon, here's your forecast?"  Wonder what impact that would have on their open rates?  I know I would feel better that they are addressing me personally.

It is also problematic to manage my content from their website.  Unlike most sites that you can log into, the "manage newsletters" link is in the middle of the page by the sign up instead of a universal log in at the top.  When I click on that, however it only shows me the newsletter I'm signed up for and doesn't allow me to edit it.  I can edit it from the emails I receive, but since I am not getting them in my Yahoo account, I don't have any way to see that.  Definitely SOUR email!

We should be MUCH smarter about how we run our email programs!  I'm just amazed that these companies aren't doing the simple things that are equating to lost revenue and opportunities. These are not small, unsophisticated organizations either and have the resources to do better.  Is it organizational structure, focus or lack of management vision and direction or some of all.  As a marketing leader, how much time and focus are you putting into the details of these programs?