tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47762548391168449152024-03-01T17:06:19.673-08:00Sour eMailLike sour milk, sour email is just something <br> that doesn't sit right in your stomach.<br> Sour email is all about those things you see every <br>day in your email inbox that need to be thrown out! <br><br><b> I think as marketers we can do better!</b><br><br> So here's my take on calling out <br>all you sour e-mailers to do better and some<br> best practices on how to do so.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-68471900808194236232018-02-16T06:27:00.001-08:002018-02-16T06:27:22.527-08:00Checking In...Updates for Sour eMail February 16, 2018<h2>
Email Best Practices and More</h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sorry for the long hiatus here. Been busy with some new clients and work and while I continue to focus on email marketing, I've been branching out into other areas in support of my client work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've been working for about a year now with a software company that supplies operational software to RV, power sports, marine and auto dealerships. Small but growing and focus right now is in the RV space, so I've been focusing my publishing efforts there. Here's some recent posts in one of the major online magazines and news engines for that industry which are relevant for Sour eMail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">December 2017 - Email Marketing Best Practices - <a href="https://rv-pro.com/news/guest-blog-email-marketing-best-practices-10-tips-success" target="_blank">10 Tips for Success</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">February 2018 - Steps to the Sale - <a href="https://rv-pro.com/news/blog-steps-sale" target="_blank">Tips to Improve Sales Conversion</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I also have an upcoming speaking engagement in San Francisco on Customer Experience Mapping. I'll post details of what that covers later, but here's details on that <a href="http://smpssf.org/meetinginfo.php?id=117&ts=1516679372" target="_blank">event</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Stay tuned for more insights and information in the email and customer relationship area.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-36716934904511436372017-10-09T11:18:00.001-07:002017-10-09T11:18:43.198-07:00DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 10-9-17<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBN35-vpvqmlUC9byIuv1K82xcqtpWMSx_wXGS6g-kHURx4esGj5AHheNVkPpEyOC8RcTmS33FT04CEMBK7xhFYJ0_MxfirxzJSzJL5ELdAvDBMzyBxuHwnsqXqqJrVSrf5GowgCPOrSQ/s1600/20171008_072255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1600" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBN35-vpvqmlUC9byIuv1K82xcqtpWMSx_wXGS6g-kHURx4esGj5AHheNVkPpEyOC8RcTmS33FT04CEMBK7xhFYJ0_MxfirxzJSzJL5ELdAvDBMzyBxuHwnsqXqqJrVSrf5GowgCPOrSQ/s400/20171008_072255.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Chicago, <a href="http://www.clubindustryshow.com/clb17/Public/Sessions.aspx?&View=Sessions_summary&&id=1066183&sortMenu=103000" target="_blank">Club Industry</a> and Marathon</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back home and into the new week after spending the weekend in Chicago. I presented my SOUR Email session at the Club Industry Show - a National gathering of people in the health club and health services business. I was glad to be there and in Chicago and it just so happened that the Chicago Marathon was Sunday. It was my first time attending and I was completely impressed and awed. I was fortunate to be staying very close to the course route, so woke up early to see the participants get started on the long run - 26.2 miles. Impressive! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What was even more impressive was to see those so much less fortunate than us out there giving it their all. Whether they were without the use of their limbs or simply without limbs or faculties, they were there participating and competing. Just the fact they were there and going for it made me feel so inspired by them and their attitudes in life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While at the conference, I covered much of what I write about in this blog, but one area we discussed was DATA QUALITY. This is an area that often does not receive enough attention in email marketing. After all, we are marketers, not IT team members. I think this is SOUR thinking and as marketers we need to be as much technologist as marketers. It is our responsibility to communicate and communicate well and that means<u> understanding the data we are using and making sure it is being executed on in the right manner.</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I spoke in one of my past blogs about the emails I keep getting addressed to "Jean," my mom's name after I order pet medicine and had it delivered to her house when I was visiting this past summer. Clearly not a good experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the latest one that SOURs me on data quality. I recently change the home warranty company that I had one of my homes covered under. I had done my research, signed up for some emails and started evaluating the companies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While they were aggressive in following up with me and sending me offers, there was NO personalization and no attempt to understand what I wanted and who I was as a real person and prospect of their company.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I ultimately spoke on the phone with a very nice gentleman who helped me understand the offers and differences between the companies and I purchased the coverage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the rub: I ordered my coverage in late September and promptly received my contract and information package in the mail. However, I continue to receive sales offers every 3-4 days.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioH3_kApxbiG6QmiKDw5E0T1e4XiOg3BCqlfsBLF7_64Gjuu1zcRwTIee2xea6epvviHn6P4Q8kdRPXp8S2T3WymdkJiJEOd7CG3VjvEaBoW-K7VNU4rmHFiQMgkjP2VLQkXYJ_2lajPk/s1600/20171008_074854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioH3_kApxbiG6QmiKDw5E0T1e4XiOg3BCqlfsBLF7_64Gjuu1zcRwTIee2xea6epvviHn6P4Q8kdRPXp8S2T3WymdkJiJEOd7CG3VjvEaBoW-K7VNU4rmHFiQMgkjP2VLQkXYJ_2lajPk/s320/20171008_074854.jpg" width="153" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, the problem is their back end ordering system isn't connected to their marketing database and now they continue to try and sell me something I already bought. I've now unsubscribed, so in addition to the errors, after 90 days, they can't send me any future content emails. Total missed opportunity because no one appears to be watching their data quality to make sure there is a great customer experience. Instead they are delivering a SOUR one that irritates me and hurts them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, in parting and in keeping with my Marathon weekend, run for the goal line and WIN!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Make sure all your teams and databases are connected and talking to each other.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Consider how your data is updated and timing of those updates.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Perhaps use resting rules to allow for the databases to sync if they are not real time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Audit your communications and paths between prospecting and sales.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-51325091516403782862017-09-19T08:31:00.002-07:002017-10-09T09:28:48.449-07:00EMAIL BENCHMARKING - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - 9-19-2017<h2>
Email Benchmarks</h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I love email marketing and that's why I write this blog. It is one of the most powerful and compelling tactics we have in our toolkit as marketers and for the most part we do a SOUR job of leveraging it to our and our prospect and customers benefit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Recently I saw a report from Digital Doughnut on <a href="https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/knowledge/2017/digital-doughnut/email-benchmarking-report-2017" target="_blank">Email Benchmarking</a> and I thought it was worthy of a conversation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This report was based on a survey of 1,500 marketers, so it is self-reported data on what people are doing, what the trends are and how satisfied they are with their providers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's what I think are the salient insights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. We are SLOW learners. <a href="http://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/email-marketing-evolution/" target="_blank">The first "blast" email was sent in 1978</a>. Yet today, only 30% of email marketers consider themselves "leaders." Only 9% rate themselves as extremely mature!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDn47PTWMPuEWybO9JUAWWmmy_dIg2u3rnWqzNptvPjMPagBzXGgLDRPfUyyLwZT2lZ2OJvGCMlRnH1VGq0FzKOM7R0lmV6Llgh8ezm6SqBaSXWPR1GWSoQ4EoMB3fovJxF8wU5j9I7fA/s1600/EmailMaturity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="506" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDn47PTWMPuEWybO9JUAWWmmy_dIg2u3rnWqzNptvPjMPagBzXGgLDRPfUyyLwZT2lZ2OJvGCMlRnH1VGq0FzKOM7R0lmV6Llgh8ezm6SqBaSXWPR1GWSoQ4EoMB3fovJxF8wU5j9I7fA/s400/EmailMaturity.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. We are still weak at executing personalization. I've written about this before and did another look at my inbox this week. Out of 155 emails only 5 companies used my first name in the subject line. My bank didn't even use my name! I'm pretty sure they know it! SOUR.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The good news is that as marketers we recognize the need to be more personalized - this is the top trend according to this study. It just saddens me that we are so slow to embrace this and even though it is considered a trend, only 26% of respondents rank it as most important.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HzuB6DIl-KljtPNHUhzt5Z4QrSCigXEBMk09sTVrbTaAsoEivjqQq-A-aT56Jdm5n9zUf-qS85gk2M7-5l5od7imXYqzJyrOQiA-Lm119CcMW4bNKDVdIxw6rqDZA0p4GLxSMTpDs9w/s1600/EmailTrends.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="732" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HzuB6DIl-KljtPNHUhzt5Z4QrSCigXEBMk09sTVrbTaAsoEivjqQq-A-aT56Jdm5n9zUf-qS85gk2M7-5l5od7imXYqzJyrOQiA-Lm119CcMW4bNKDVdIxw6rqDZA0p4GLxSMTpDs9w/s400/EmailTrends.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The One-To-One Future was written by Peppers and Rogers in 1993! That's almost 25 years ago.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now I know that was visionary in its time and we really didn't have the database and technological capabilities to be as personalized as we can today. Now, however, there is no excuse. Even the most basic ESPs allow you to do some level of personalization. We can and should be much better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. What do you need to know to be better? I have spoken and written about all of this in past posts and you can find detailed specifics and best practices by reviewing these. <u>Now is the time to become a leader and insure you are executing all of the below at the highest level.</u></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZA5ZwBqUVHy0Nzkmla14mu9xCp-mPjRjKhwUYxMkVpwfTfHbA7pqzTacuKvLD4eK2XHYynlYzBmYUhc5vAG9CtBz0HT9BzJ6Svi6Vwqjz5XNvxRcMQ-P1Tpwjk55awv4WZa19TC-83E4/s1600/EmailLeaders.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="371" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZA5ZwBqUVHy0Nzkmla14mu9xCp-mPjRjKhwUYxMkVpwfTfHbA7pqzTacuKvLD4eK2XHYynlYzBmYUhc5vAG9CtBz0HT9BzJ6Svi6Vwqjz5XNvxRcMQ-P1Tpwjk55awv4WZa19TC-83E4/s320/EmailLeaders.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">One note of caution on the first bullet - while I agree that you should be sending more emails on a regular basis, that doesn't mean more to everyone. Be sure that the volume of emails is increased only if using personalization, triggering and relevant communication. Your emails should include content that is delivered at the right time and is truly based on what your prospect or customer needs at that point in their customer journey, not what you want. If you deliver on their needs you will always win over the long term in your customers minds and hearts and for your business.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or course, if you need help, <a href="http://crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">contact me</a>!</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-43386234630472648672017-08-31T07:05:00.002-07:002017-08-31T07:05:55.609-07:00WHY DON'T MARKETERS LISTEN - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 8-31-2017<span style="font-size: large;">I've been working on my next presentation for the <a href="http://www.clubindustryshow.com/clb17/Public/enter.aspx" target="_blank">Club Industry Show</a> in Chicago in early October. This is the National conference for the Health Club industry. Not one I have focused on before for emails, so have been hitting websites and seeing what is happening in this space. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In my past blogs I have spoken much about the customer journey and the content needed throughout the funnel, but unfortunately, a large portion of marketers across many industries continue to use email to only deliver messaging at the end of the funnel. Even if the funnel is short, there is opportunity to deliver more value and be less promotional. This helps build trust and consideration early in the relationship and primes action later. This is a long term strategy, not short term sales and ROI focused.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As part of my research, I signed up on a handful of fitness sites to see what they would do and how they would communicate with me. Big surprise, they didn't try to "court" me, they went straight for the "marriage" trying to get me in their door with a free pass. And even when they sent me their "free pass" they didn't try to inform me. This would have been a great opportunity to add some valuable content about health and fitness to reinforce why I should be going into their club. Instead, this was all about operations and getting "married" before I even am sure I like them!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigERcweZZzlq_fbkTV-6Xxzb0kZBIBhYGxWHxYb6Ef-xj4ZhmCv6sCQuDEQaCiFx_vl2j3sELTovXvfKkK9v8gl1KVFWS-aWQa66OwecaTtN8v3R5Sz3Qoj4e7gTNtg8s6EViFwsuFX48/s1600/LA_Fitness_Guest_Pass.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="629" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigERcweZZzlq_fbkTV-6Xxzb0kZBIBhYGxWHxYb6Ef-xj4ZhmCv6sCQuDEQaCiFx_vl2j3sELTovXvfKkK9v8gl1KVFWS-aWQa66OwecaTtN8v3R5Sz3Qoj4e7gTNtg8s6EViFwsuFX48/s320/LA_Fitness_Guest_Pass.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another thing I speak a lot about is customer centricity and the importance of listening to our customers. That is how you win, both short and long term.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If there isn't enough evidence out there, here's a great statistic from an article this week in <a href="http://www.adweek.com/digital/40-of-consumers-want-email-content-to-be-less-promotional-and-more-informative/" target="_blank">AdWeek.</a></span><br />
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40% of Consumers Want Emails From Brands to Be Less Promotional and More Informative</h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In spite of this, still 61% prefer email (as compared to other mediums such as direct mail) as their method for receiving promotions from brands. <u>But, can't we find a blend of both?</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So why don't we listen? Here's my thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Its </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Easier</span><span style="font-size: large;"> to create promotional messages and they can be directly tied to revenue. Marketers still have to serve their finance and leadership masters. Their job is to drive revenue and reduce costs/improve profits. It takes enlightened leadership and progressive and sometimes brave marketers who can tell the story of why and how early journey content and emails drive success both long and short term. Hopefully the above statistic can help tell that story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. They don't know what </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">content</span><span style="font-size: large;"> they need or don't have it. Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) may seem like an activity that isn't needed or too time consuming or difficult to do. The reality is this is a strategic tool that will help you focus on what is important: the right customers, their motivations and what they need to move into and through your funnel. Don't short change your strategy and execution by missing this vital step.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. Email marketing isn't </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">strategic</span><span style="font-size: large;"> enough. Often these team members are technical, creative and executing members of the team. There isn't enough conversation about strategies around email marketing within the organization. CMOs and marketing heads need to outline the overarching strategy for email and direct these team members to deliver more than just the same old promotional content. You need to provide resources and insist on CJMs for your core segments and content procurement that meets customers needs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So the net is, we don't listen - SOUR because we are failing at:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Being team leaders and visionaries</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Championing strategy and insights about the customers needs</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Being customer centric in all things</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- LISTENING!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Want help with CJM, email strategy or more, <a href="http://crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">contact me</a>. And, if you are in the health care industry, look for me Oct 6th in Chicago at the Club Industry Show where I will be speaking more about "Turning SOUR Email into Sweet Marketing Success."</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-44223881556346194892017-08-02T07:34:00.000-07:002017-08-08T12:27:51.973-07:00CUSTOMER CENTRICITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 8-2-2017<span style="font-size: large;">Conference Speaking Gig</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hmg2pCDbpGf1pKzt9910opnDAsnMiFsxTDWl-hPom06H8mlHPUXRzd6Ms-r6uDLWqGXXAbta-S0cFERI9o4Rjo11ER02h48p8ODAVUZsrUX1sTq3rC0-I8BxmhpgLZlJ1cdJSFiYKBk/s1600/gaylord.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="400" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hmg2pCDbpGf1pKzt9910opnDAsnMiFsxTDWl-hPom06H8mlHPUXRzd6Ms-r6uDLWqGXXAbta-S0cFERI9o4Rjo11ER02h48p8ODAVUZsrUX1sTq3rC0-I8BxmhpgLZlJ1cdJSFiYKBk/s400/gaylord.png" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about CRM, email and marketing strategy at the Southeast Building Conference #SEBCVille last week at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Hotel near Disney World. My session was focused on customer centricity and how to be the driver rather than the passenger in the customer conversation. If you would like a copy of my deck, please <a href="http://crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">contact me</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While there, I was able to attend a couple of other sessions and it was good to hear others having the same conversation, even using similar analogies of cars. I sat in on the session by <a href="https://www.coltivar.com/steve-coughran/" target="_blank">Steve Coughran</a> at Coltivar Group and I loved his description of how businesses continue to miss the opportunity to focus on customers. He called it the "Me Car." In essence what he talked about is that in conversations, sales teams and even in marketing materials we tend to focus on the company rather than trying to listen to and understand the customers needs and presenting compelling content that they care about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As someone who started out my career on the market research side of marketing, I have always been a big proponent of using those tools to better understand prospects and customers. Today we have even more! Here's some things to consider doing if you are not already.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Prospect surveys</b></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Either on line or in person, don't let someone out of your sphere without trying to obtain some level of information and insight from them. People are usually happy to tell you things about themselves. Who doesn't like to talk about themselves? You could do web based surveys to understand the things people like about your site, test different experiences and more. See a few of these type tools <a href="http://usabilitygeek.com/user-experience-ux-tools/" target="_blank">here</a>. Phone surveys are great for customer service insights. How many times have you heard the message: "Please take a moment to answer a few questions about the call..?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While at Centex Homes, I instituted a model center survey program that was part of the sign in process for visitors who came to the model homes. At my session at SEBC, I talked about the insights we gained from this work. Within only 18 months, across our Divisions we had over 8,000 completed surveys. We analyzed these to understand our segments needs in a home, their motivations for purchase, what influenced their visit and the features of the homes that were important to them. These insights about the segments helped inform product design and features, sales team scripts, marketing activities and more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Customer Satisfaction Surveys</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some think the concept of Net Promoter Score is dead, however, I disagree. This metric is a good tracking tool over time to understand where you are and to benchmark your performance against industry norms and overall. It helps you keep a pulse on the sentiment and combined with other survey insights can provide great content. When I went to the Home Storage company I worked for several years ago, they had great creative and rudimentary understanding of their consumer targets, but hadn't done a deep dive or built a "culture of learning." I started this CSAT study in my first 30 days and began a process that not only trended the company Net Promoter Score but provided insights that informed product, customer service and much more. We disseminated the commentary from the surveys to the appropriate departments for continuous improvements in all these areas. This led to the institution of additional insight collections specific to customer service, our business partner channels and other ad hoc insights that were needed to better understand our customers and prospects.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was all about being customer centric and understanding the customer and making them core to the way we ran the business. Here's a slide I borrowed for my presentation that I think does a good job of describing at a high level what is needed to be customer centric.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.superoffice.com/blog/how-to-create-a-customer-centric-strategy/" target="_blank"><img alt="Customer Centricity" border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="688" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih4LA2yhPvhGJADKhlmszrL0ow_7pZFje-2W1zzU3sqfJG9uEFpfqYvrNF53P0tddQWjQDKfcqRQ2tgf3yXTopaQYXm4YRlJCHqcopRt_G-bpmJzD2xM5EoF3IR6FJajOKfZcZau-_Q9s/s400/customer+centric.png" title="Customer Centricity" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Email Insights</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This blog is about email, so I would be remiss in not mentioning how to use email to drive customer centricity. <u>Email communication should not be one way.</u> It is a great engagement tool and way to obtain insights in "sound bytes." This can be helpful to continue learning throughout your relationship. Also, while at Centex, we implemented a robust CRM communications program that was founded on the customer journey and the understanding that it was a long process. Central to that was where our prospect was in the process. We crafted unique communications flows based on this timing presenting content that was relevant for each phase. We initially asked them where they were in their process and got them to tell us "how long until you plan to make a decision." We continued to ask this question in every email communication, so if circumstances changed, they could let us know and we could move them to a different communications track. We also used behavioral triggers to move people into different communications paths. So for example, if someone asked a very specific question in response to an email, an online consultant was automatically notified and a personal phone call follow up was made.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Every touch point with your prospects and customers should be a learning opportunity. Being open to the voice of the customer and building tools and processes to learn from those interactions will help you drive a business that matters and is responsive to the needs of your customers which naturally leads to profitability and success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Your CRM then becomes the repository of this learning so that you maintain the "one truth" of the customer that provides you the insights and tools you need to grow a profitable business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, as I said in my presentation, here's the things that you need to drive the customer relationship and build your business:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- <span style="text-indent: 0in;">Customer focused leadership is
key</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- Build a learning culture and
systems</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- Focus on the entire journey, not
just the end</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- Tell stories and make emotional
connections</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">- Measure and always be improving</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Your Journey with the Customer Never Ends!</span></h2>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-66453797284470937412017-07-05T14:55:00.000-07:002017-07-05T14:55:47.412-07:00BUYERS JOURNEY CONTENT - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 7-5-2017<br />
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" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Happy 4th of July. Hope you all enjoyed this mid week holiday to celebrate our independence and what it means for all of us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I enjoyed it with family and neighbors, but am now back to work and thinking about email content as it relates to the buyer journey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think about and spend a lot of time writing about experiential and lifestyle selling and how to better connect with consumers and use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and email specifically to maintain and develop those relationships over time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Over the years, I have been involved with database marketing and have oftentimes had large databases to tap into to activate and drive incremental business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Customer Journey - Awareness and Consideration</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Email is certainly a relationship tool, but I think many of us miss the mark in using it for awareness and consideration. What do I mean by that? Well, a negative example is a good way to start. I like to pick on the home building industry for "sour" behaviors because they are an easy target! They are a very sales and end of funnel focused and if you review just the subject lines of their emails, you can see that. Here's a snapshot of several weeks of emails from one home builder. As you can see, they are very focused on SELLING and not so much on understanding where a prospect is in their journey and what kind of things they might want to know.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxuoBl9PXIf_upykaj-zZb3_MrkBnQjeMgHe0rdSjmwF_O4ky_VxGTtkLBY38lobHueKC72wK9WZT4L1eqQkjPT1wCMn2IlT151dZ37DqZlLxkVYKidLsMTuUjxu0pUuzEqQYDgMQC3Y/s1600/email+subjects.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="462" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilxuoBl9PXIf_upykaj-zZb3_MrkBnQjeMgHe0rdSjmwF_O4ky_VxGTtkLBY38lobHueKC72wK9WZT4L1eqQkjPT1wCMn2IlT151dZ37DqZlLxkVYKidLsMTuUjxu0pUuzEqQYDgMQC3Y/s400/email+subjects.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Customer Journey - Early Funnel Content</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I shared some thoughts a few posts ago about customer journey mapping and how this can help you understand the journey, but what I'd like to focus on today is how you discover and develop content specifically focused on the very earliest phases of the journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As part of the mapping process, it is important to ask yourself what kind of questions will people ask in the early phases of discovery and consideration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some questions that are relevant in this stage need to take you away from the sales process and this makes it hard to get to the right questions. I've had many conversations with people about what content at this level means and often the responses I receive are still too focused lower in the funnel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So let's look at some examples.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Home Building </span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If I'm not really even thinking about buying a home, how might a builder get some consideration going? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">First, think about people and their homes. Everyone lives in a home and at times may think about how that home might be better, more livable or something they don't like about it. What kind of compelling content could help them?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's some topic ideas:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Top things I would change about my home if I could</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- How to get more out of less space</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Popular colors for this season</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Each of these has nothing to do with a specific builder or the later stages of the sales process. However, if you had the opportunity to share this kind of content with a broader audience, either in your email database or not, would it be beneficial? Would it help start the consideration process? Would it make people more likely to contact you when they are further into the process?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'd say yes, if done well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Clothes and Fashions</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is a much shorter cycle time so the content can drive to purchase much faster. Concepts are still the same however. What things can get you into their consideration? So perhaps content like:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Best summer swim suits</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Summer colors that dazzle</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Summer dress styles for every budget</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Again, there is no "promotion" or offer to come in or visit a website and buy it now, but just something to put people into the thinking process of clothing and fashions for summer that could ultimately lead to a purchase from you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can come up with these kind of early funnel examples for virtually any industry and product. The point is to sell but not sell, tap into an emotion and lifestyle and provide content that is of interest and useful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And don't forget to ask them to raise their hand once they do engage with the content. Even though people don't like pop-up windows, they do work to get people to sign up for more content like what you provided (and oh, by the way, maybe a special offer!). It's all about the sale, its just how you get there and when that matters. Early funnel content does matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Happy 4th and happy early funnel content development.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-35162295601444709132017-06-13T06:13:00.000-07:002017-06-13T06:15:15.634-07:00CONTENT FOR THE JOURNEY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 6-12-17<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Content is King (or Queen)</span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEo-KEnWIj3HU-WLFIKgAvh1ms7e93GuLYDp53lpyvcGQIpIkHyts-6y95xZtdiq-mcgcfBvpL1xClMF5_zwJ3tQlVsAVtO925_O1puzAGl7XY36V0UivFUN5_nUpaPCXYfFKFcKKrRY/s1600/20170603_095147.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEo-KEnWIj3HU-WLFIKgAvh1ms7e93GuLYDp53lpyvcGQIpIkHyts-6y95xZtdiq-mcgcfBvpL1xClMF5_zwJ3tQlVsAVtO925_O1puzAGl7XY36V0UivFUN5_nUpaPCXYfFKFcKKrRY/s320/20170603_095147.jpg" width="180" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">I've been errant in getting my posts out consistently the past few weeks. I have a good excuse however, as I've been making some transitional moves to fully set up my winter and summer homes. I'm a little backwards this year spending the summer in Florida instead of Michigan. Some of us relaxed on the 1,200 mile drive! Needed to do that to buy and sell properties here in Florida however. Getting to spend some time in the home I brought my daughter up in before selling it and moving to the coast, so that has been a trip down memory lane.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I digress, however. I have also been working on some speaking presentations and as part of that I realized I haven't said much in these posts about content for the journey.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Content for the Journey</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Last month I talked about CJM (Customer Journey Mapping) and laid out the high level thoughts and steps on how to go about this process. Of course, if you need help doing this, <a href="http://www.crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">contact me</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What I have found, just like in writing this blog and throughout my years as a marketing leader is that creating the content is the hardest part of implementing your customer communications strategy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can do a great job of creating your CJM, setting in place the tools needed to executed (automation, databases, KPIs, etc.), but if you don't build your content engine, you will fail.</span><br />
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Content Gap Analysis</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I did a CJM years ago while working at Sears Home Services, one of the steps and "aha moments" was after creating the map and the content plan was the work we did as our next step which was to create a content gap analysis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We took an inventory of all the content we had and then compared it to the content we needed. The "aha moment" was in understanding where our gaps were. Invariably, there and in other industries that I work in one of several outcomes are observed:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">There is just minimal content - so a BIG gap</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">There is great content across the journey phases - so MINIMAL gap (you don't see that too often)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">There is a gap in one or more phases of the journey - most common</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At Sears, we found that we were missing content early in the funnel. I have often found that to be true. Most selling organizations where the sales function is a strong driver at the leadership level tend to err in this space. They focus their content on end of funnel conversions and the consideration phase of the decision.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">
Metrics Focus</span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTNlcZRruOiKANpyrbdNdBmmiY0ZpYO8UZLt6BjcnEOWDlHTA19A2vKEGaBMD2Ke8eAjP7qKZlDRZc07DfwKl2ULxaqlrxdDJjmOTo5WvTFD207r0ZFwNiLMexppTdjhsBG-g5NS2jUo/s1600/funnel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTNlcZRruOiKANpyrbdNdBmmiY0ZpYO8UZLt6BjcnEOWDlHTA19A2vKEGaBMD2Ke8eAjP7qKZlDRZc07DfwKl2ULxaqlrxdDJjmOTo5WvTFD207r0ZFwNiLMexppTdjhsBG-g5NS2jUo/s1600/funnel.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the reasons a lot of organizations don't develop compelling content for early in the journey can be laid at the feet of the metrics. It is hard to justify early funnel content when leadership is focused on short term, immediate results. In my last role in the home storage products industry, I had countless conversations about widening the conversion funnel at the top versus the bottom and minimizing the "leakage" through the process. Business leaders want to see immediate results of your efforts and unfortunately content, especially that designed to build awareness and consideration does not typically drive immediate results. Instead, it drives a wider funnel that provides more conversions as you put more people into the funnel. The important element is setting the right metrics for this type of content. So, it is not about getting the sale, but getting the prospect to engage and take the next step (impressions, clicks, shares, read rates, etc).</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Content Generation</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So once you have identified your customer journey, your content needs and your gap, you can begin to develop a content plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you want to learn a lot more about the importance of content to business success, I recommend attending the <a href="http://www.contentmarketingworld.com/" target="_blank">Content Marketing World</a> conference held in Cleveland. This year it is Sept 5-8, so well before the snows start falling and a very pretty time of year in the mid-west. There are great sessions on all things content and they will provide you many ideas on where and how to create content and also how to elevate this important function within your organization to the place it belongs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At a high level, here's some ways to begin to build the great content library you need to drive the customer journey to your benefit:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Build it yourself</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Partner with media outlets who deliver similar content</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Re purpose historical content (repetition is important and different people show up at different times, so don't be afraid to reuse good content and use in multiple places)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Share other's content that is relevant (with permission and proper authorization of course)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Hire external content providers (make versus buy decision - topic for a future blog post)</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's a great infographic on <a href="https://blog.kissmetrics.com/tips-for-creating-content/?wide=1" target="_blank">22 tips</a> for creating content from <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/" target="_blank">copyblogger</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's easier than you think. You just need to focus and build an organization that can deliver. Most importantly, you need to understand the customer journey so you can curate the right content.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Happy content development!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-6322157441009745192017-05-05T06:08:00.000-07:002017-05-05T06:08:07.655-07:00CJM AND EMAIL - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 5-5-17<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPHGtLiGjyVxS3ePDga6wh11c8UptNw4toSKHRCEZQwQVqNu2IFztl0H9uHqFGF3yKVkc80_j6wE7L4rzfxA5-x3p-PnoLSOFJuob5tJGb3bRFz8uRRrFwIaBr6JJhOqdHCh405_0i4Ho/s1600/WindmillIsland-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPHGtLiGjyVxS3ePDga6wh11c8UptNw4toSKHRCEZQwQVqNu2IFztl0H9uHqFGF3yKVkc80_j6wE7L4rzfxA5-x3p-PnoLSOFJuob5tJGb3bRFz8uRRrFwIaBr6JJhOqdHCh405_0i4Ho/s320/WindmillIsland-1.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Happy May Day. It is a beautiful time of year in Michigan when all the trees and flowers are in bloom. This weekend starts the annual <a href="http://www.tuliptime.com/" target="_blank">Tulip Time</a> festival in Holland. I missed it last year, so am looking forward to attending this year. I never knew the variety and colors of tulips until I experienced this when I first arrived in Michigan three years ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But, that's not our topic today. What I would like to cover today is CJM or Customer Journey Mapping and how it can inform your email strategy and campaigns. In some ways I've been doing this for years through my segmentation and customer analytics work. We just now call it something specific and have a practice and discipline around it. The whole concept is to understand the decision funnel or journey and the content needed during that journey by the prospect with the goal of:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Providing the right content at the right time</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Moving people faster along the journey</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Getting more people to take the next steps in the journey (with you!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There has been a lot written about this and the process and there are plenty of examples and options on how to do it, but the most important elements in my mind are:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Think about it from the customers perspective, not what you want</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Understand that the journey starts well before they know about you</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Leverage research and analytics to understand what the customers content needs really are and what is appropriate at each stage</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Develop compelling content and deliver it in a variety of ways (including email)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Insure your KPIs are in place and aligned to the experience and phases</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Create separate journey maps if needed for different segments and target populations (where the content needs may be vastly different)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Email, then can become an important and engaging element along this journey and a great way for you to deliver and reinforce this content to the prospect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Below is a Journey Map I created for my RV industry clients. As you can see this maps out the phases and marketing steps and where email fits into the journey. This can be relatively similar for other businesses and industries although the marketing tactics may be different.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgbhzbdEB0-9Vm7MoNmrFVkx_C9QOJIBSXYxK0ECaU_xoK4gF24YJIi-ALsvjhl0BhjtgKb9vcwBeK4xrXKf6Gu5qIEkQsCsX_gYk0DXBj-QjD0SREhXaXa3w0bcKSn6f2TMVYTbpBC0/s1600/RV_Customer_Journey.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgbhzbdEB0-9Vm7MoNmrFVkx_C9QOJIBSXYxK0ECaU_xoK4gF24YJIi-ALsvjhl0BhjtgKb9vcwBeK4xrXKf6Gu5qIEkQsCsX_gYk0DXBj-QjD0SREhXaXa3w0bcKSn6f2TMVYTbpBC0/s1600/RV_Customer_Journey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="customer journey map" border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgbhzbdEB0-9Vm7MoNmrFVkx_C9QOJIBSXYxK0ECaU_xoK4gF24YJIi-ALsvjhl0BhjtgKb9vcwBeK4xrXKf6Gu5qIEkQsCsX_gYk0DXBj-QjD0SREhXaXa3w0bcKSn6f2TMVYTbpBC0/s400/RV_Customer_Journey.png" title="Customer Journey Map" width="400" /></a></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">The point is: EMAIL can be leveraged along most of the journey.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The next phase then of the journey mapping process is to think about your content and what aligns to the phases and how you get it in front of people. For example, in the early funnel phases, general White Papers or articles related to your topic may start consumers down the path. So in our RV example, an article on the "TOP 10 National Parks to See This Summer" might be early funnel content. A comparison and evaluation of RV brands and types would be later funnel content.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sending that later funnel content to someone who hasn't even considered RVing would not be appropriate or productive.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">TOP Tips for CJM and Email</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Build segment specific Customer Journey Maps</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Create compelling content for each phase of the journey</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Complete a content audit to find the gaps you have in needed content</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Develop compelling content and types (video, audio, imagery, copy)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- USE EMAIL to reinforce and deliver on this content</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- TEST and MEASURE along the way</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Need help with your CJM? Contact <a href="https://www.crm-concepts.com/" target="_blank">CRM Concepts</a> to get started today.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-88178335863698585512017-04-10T10:50:00.000-07:002017-04-10T10:50:00.444-07:00MAIL HOST METRICS - Anatomy of an eMail Inbox 4-10-2017<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkmyr4GgSJhkufDthGoRAnbXNOSJSV6tCMr1W9uWQclBWEeK899bxCh7nzIyDTe9S8oPRiqIjNmRv7n62FlwJEngTZ5XI56Ki_Oh9RcGxdEQzRCPRpXTvDWszt_G1FQBykIFAKlKD9Pw/s1600/Untitled+design+%25283%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglkmyr4GgSJhkufDthGoRAnbXNOSJSV6tCMr1W9uWQclBWEeK899bxCh7nzIyDTe9S8oPRiqIjNmRv7n62FlwJEngTZ5XI56Ki_Oh9RcGxdEQzRCPRpXTvDWszt_G1FQBykIFAKlKD9Pw/s320/Untitled+design+%25283%2529.png" width="213" /></a><br />
Wow, time sure flies! Here it is already April and we are into the second quarter of the year. I'm excited to be working for this month on a speaking engagement with the Atlanta Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators on the topic of eMail marketing. As I prepare, I am able to use a lot of the content from this blog to create a primer on what are the important elements of your email marketing program. If you like what you read here and are interested in having me present at your event, be sure to <a href="http://crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">contact me.</a><br />
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As part of my regular reading and preparing for this event, I came across an article from Return Path that I think is worthy of repeating and discussing. It is important because it provides some unique and incremental metrics to our marketing tool kit that have not been available until recently.<br />
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The report is based on "global consumer data consisting of over 17,000 commercial senders, 2.5
million consumer panelists, and over 5 billion commercial email messages sent to Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and
AOL users between January 1 and December 31, 2016."<br />
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What will be interesting is if the mail hosts will make this kind of data commercially available specific to our programs going forward and at what cost. But, for this analysis, they uncover some metrics that I think are worthy of thinking about. The report also provides some benchmark data by industry so if you can get your hands on this data for your database, would be valuable to understand where you have problems and opportunities.<br />
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What do they mean and how can they help us as marketers? Let's take a look one by one.<br />
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<h3>
SPAM Placement Rate </h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">In essence, they are measuring what percentage of your emails land in the SPAM email box rather than the inbox. Now, we have to presume that the emails included in the study were from legitimate emailers, all 17,000 of them. So given that presumption, a bit scary to know that even for legitimate email marketers the 2016 average of emails landing in the SPAM box was 13% (a little worse than the 12% from 2015).</span><br />
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While it wasn't presented in this data, I have to wonder what the differences were between mail hosts and what things we could do. They do speak to some areas as marketers that we can pay attention to like content, reputation and engagement, but the reality is we are at the mercy of the mail host. I know having worked with mail hosts on black list and other complaint and deliverability issues that this is a big endeavor and one that will require some dedicated resources in your agency or team to really impact.<br />
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<h3>
Read Rate</h3>
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The percentage of emails marked as "read." This definition is a bit problematic for me as I don't know if that means read one line, word, paragraph or the full thing and how they can actually tell that I am reading something without eye tracking and intrusive monitoring systems. So, on this one, I have more questions than answers on whether it is worthy of even pursuing as a legitimate metric that goes beyond Open Rates as they propose. Generally their benchmark rates look fairly similar to Open Rates as well, so at a minimum if we all become comfortable that this is a valid metric, it would be more of a replacement metric than something new in my mind.<br />
<h3>
<br />Deleted Before Reading Rate</h3>
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This one causes me some concern too. Again, I ask the question, how do you know I read that and how much. I would like to understand more about this metric.<br />
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<h3>
Reply Rate</h3>
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This one sounds interesting. For sure if someone is replying to our emails, then there clearly is engagement, so that is good. However, many of you may be sending emails without the ability to reply to them. I also don't see that they have delineated in the study if these emails were transactional or promotional. This could have a very big impact on the reply rate. For example if the email is to confirm an appointment, you would expect that a very large percentage would be replied to versus a sales promotion where the company really doesn't want you to reply, but wants you to click somewhere and go to their website or into a store. So while this metric certainly could be of interest, I don't think email marketers are focused on garnering replies as a goal in their email marketing programs, so may have limited value. This is pretty evident by the minuscule averages for this metric (0.13% in 2016). After all, if they reply, then you need to be prepared to answer!<br />
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<h3>
Forward Rate</h3>
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This one like Reply Rate has tiny numbers with an average of 0.03% for 2016. However, what is interesting as a marketer is if we should think of this as a goal of email. There was a time where there was lots of functionality around the concept of "forward to a friend" that you hardly see used at all these days. Maybe that should tell us something such as perhaps it didn't really work, so why focus on it. In the world of opportunity costs and trying to find the highest and best use of your talents and resources this seems like a non-event in my mind.<br />
<h3>
<br />Complaint Rate</h3>
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We already get this one and certainly want to be aware of it. The numbers are low, but unless you are really upset, do you even bother? I do think there could be some insights in knowing the why of this metric. That would then allow us to figure out how to change. Fortunately, it appears Return Path has already thought about this and has a <a href="https://returnpath.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SubscriberComplaints_Final_100814.pdf" target="_blank">white paper</a> to help you out.<br />
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<h3>
This is Not Spam Rate</h3>
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Like complaint rate, this is something proactive and rare that people do in their inbox. I know at times when I have done so, it was typically a transactional email or one that I was expecting, not something that was part of a marketing revenue driving campaign, so again, not so sure of the validity or one that I should care about as a marketer.<br />
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For me, while these are interesting metrics to think about, really only two of them are material in terms of understanding missed opportunities: SPAM and Delete Before Reading. Based on the 2016 average, that cuts over a quarter of our emails off the top right away that we know aren't getting read. On the other hand, the read rate and other metrics give us about another 25% that are getting some engagement, mostly positive, but some negative. The questions are can we push those in the middle up the engagement curve, how much are we able to impact what goes into the SPAM box and how do we insure we manage our reputation proactively to improve performance. Certainly working with the Mail Hosts on this is important, no matter what metrics are in play.<br />
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For your own copy of the full Return Path article, <a href="https://returnpath.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/RP-Metrics-Benchmark-Report.pdf?ref=emailmarketingtipps.de" target="_blank">click here.</a><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-63991098775070787312017-03-28T05:41:00.000-07:002017-03-28T05:41:49.329-07:00WHY NOT EMAIL? - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 3/28/17<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a long term user of email marketing, it has always seemed like a non-issue to even consider that you would not do it, so I am always surprised and a bit dismayed when I come across businesses that are not including email as part of their marketing arsenal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what do the statistics say and why should you be using email?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are lots of statistics about email marketing and here's some that might surprise you (or not if you are already investing in a email marketing):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- 64% of people say they open the email because of the subject line</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- 44% of recipients made at least one purchase based on a promotional email</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- There are 4.6 billion email accounts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- Email ROI is one of the highest of all marketing tactics (Direct Marketing Association says it is 38 to 1, but I've seen rates even higher)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- For 89% of marketers email is the primary lead generation channel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">- Email is the preferred source of business communication for 72% of consumers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are lots more interesting email statistics you can find, but here's the big one and the subject of this post:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Email marketing strategies are used by 82 percent of B2B and B2C companies. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That means that there are 18% of you out there who ARE NOT using email marketing - SOUR!</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With all this compelling evidence, I have to wonder why. So, I'm putting a quick poll out on my LinkedIn and twitter accounts to see if I can find out.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #221f1f;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let me know what you think too - if you are not or have limited investment in email marketing, what's keeping you from doing it?</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-15247360033597885232017-03-18T05:52:00.001-07:002017-03-18T05:52:50.079-07:00SUBJECT LINE TESTING - Anatomy of an Email Inbox 3/16/2017<span style="font-size: large;">The subject line in your email is one of the main reasons people decide to click and engage with your content. It can make the difference between great or mediocre email performance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Email service providers (ESP) understand this and many of them build this functionality into their systems. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have referenced one of my favorite best practices sites, behave.org, for testing before. See some of their subject line <a href="https://www.behave.org/page-tested/subject-lines/" target="_blank">testing results</a> for ideas on things you can test. Marketers are seeing small and large impacts from these tests, but done well, some have seen <u>more than double the open rates.</u> So, what does that mean in raw numbers and potential revenue? Look at the simple example below. This spreadsheet allows you to input your own metrics and see the revenue impact possible with a subject line test. Want this spreadsheet? <a href="http://crm-concepts.com/contact-us" target="_blank">Request Now.</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJLDS6GjnG3Ygs4TSs_NCzu17o3p0AAcYByql7QnHuDp7qFaduRl8VROscwjCDs_aiJU3RptkwloFGxFGf7At9QPN1VSwTgWf1kPXwXDZEagoqhgHcS7v_FfKNf5ECkzG-MSvZWQXoP4/s1600/SubjectLineTest_Impact.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJLDS6GjnG3Ygs4TSs_NCzu17o3p0AAcYByql7QnHuDp7qFaduRl8VROscwjCDs_aiJU3RptkwloFGxFGf7At9QPN1VSwTgWf1kPXwXDZEagoqhgHcS7v_FfKNf5ECkzG-MSvZWQXoP4/s640/SubjectLineTest_Impact.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So how do you do subject line testing? As I said above, most of the large ESPs have this functionality already built in. We will use MailChimp as an example to show the process steps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Create a New Campaign</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. From the drop down, pick A/B Testing as your campaign type</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">3. Pick your list, either an existing one or create a new one</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">4. Select subject line as the type of test you would like to do (here and in other ESPs you can select how many subject lines to test, however just be careful on doing too many at once unless you have a very large list since the more you split it, the more difficult to obtain valid results). MailChimp actually recommends a minimum of 5,000 per test cell</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">5. Select the percentage split of how many of the recipients will receive each version of the subject line. This will depend on how many subject lines you have, so for two split 50/50, for 3, 33/33/33, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">6. Select how long before you declare a winner. You can select hours or days. Your selection will depend on the size of your list. If your list is small, you may want to leave a longer time to allow enough results to come in to have a valid sample</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">7. Select the metric you are measuring. For subject line testing, it will typically be the open rate, but you could select something else if you have full funnel metrics</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">8. ALWAYS remember to personalize with the first name if you have it unless this is your test</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">9. Enter in your test subject lines, from and what metrics you want to track</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">10. Select and populate your email content and design</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">11. Test and send by following the prompts</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">12. Review your results and add to your ongoing learning</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While this is only one walk-through in how to do a subject line test, other systems may work differently including the ability to embed a subject line test as part of normal sends. This typically works by allowing you to set 10-20% of your list to run through the test in the first wave of sending, then after reading those results, continue with the full list send based on the winning subject line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even if your system doesn't have robust, built in subject line testing, you can do it yourself by creating two campaigns with everything the same except the subject line. While this is a bit more work and can be a bit problematic from a sending standpoint, it still provides you the ability to test and learn how subject lines can improve your bottom line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today's Tips:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Include subject line testing as a normal part of your email program</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- As always, use personalization</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Read results, accumulate your learnings and continue to improve!</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-54736096017273777792017-03-07T08:38:00.001-08:002017-04-05T07:09:25.303-07:00COMMUNICATION TIMELINES - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - 3/6/17<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">How long should we communicate with our prospects?</span></h2>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I had the opportunity to speak at a <a href="http://www.womeninconsulting.org/" target="_blank">Women in Consulting</a> event in San Francisco last week. Our topic was Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the customer journey, but of course email marketing came up as a part of the discussion.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTdg9eT5lrfBQ_aQPitCvrEZ4TMQBkB-OdY5h-HX69jixI2tCd4uqx5qMw4j1PhX1D_68MPOCsR8TCTFbCWwExOUpUKg9GJOwgY_tJHp_nFlSdwH4mFAVfTWSyIT-CfsD87IMLA-pLrI/s1600/Untitled+design+%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTdg9eT5lrfBQ_aQPitCvrEZ4TMQBkB-OdY5h-HX69jixI2tCd4uqx5qMw4j1PhX1D_68MPOCsR8TCTFbCWwExOUpUKg9GJOwgY_tJHp_nFlSdwH4mFAVfTWSyIT-CfsD87IMLA-pLrI/s320/Untitled+design+%25282%2529.png" width="213" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">We talked about what kind of emails these business consultants were deploying for their prospects and customers and what they should be doing in the context of building a strong customer relationship and improving conversion rates throughout the decision funnel.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The specific question that came up was how long should they continue the conversation. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you put yourself in the shoes of your customers, think about why they signed up in the first place and what you had to say that meant something to them. Couch this in the context of their journey in a relationship with you and what information is relevant at what point in that journey.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Also important in the process is determining what you want to get out of the relationship. For it to be successful, there needs to be value on both sides of the equation. Consider these business goals:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- To make a connection with your prospects and build a long term relationship</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- To provide the right content at the right point in the customer journey</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- To stay top of mind</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- To improve conversions through the journey (and improve ROI and the bottom line for your business).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, back to the question of how long to communicate. As a marketer, we build brand and awareness, drive consideration and conversion. These are the classic decision funnel steps. We invest sometimes millions of dollars to do this and our goal should be to give the target customers compelling reasons to "raise their hand" as early in this decision process as possible. This is important because it allows you to:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Take prospects out of the market</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Influence the conversation at an early stage</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Become a trusted expert and partner in the decision</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Improve conversions over both the short and long term.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Depending on your product, the buying cycle could be long or short and even if it is a short cycle commodity or necessity product, you still want them to come back for repeat purchases.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you are not top of mind and there when that trigger point happens that pushes them to the next phase in their decision process or even circles them back to an earlier stage, you will miss the opportunity for the continued conversation and conversion.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Over the past 20 years, I have mostly worked with long decision cycle consumer products. The businesses spent millions of dollars to build large databases of prospects and often only 1-2% actually purchased in any one period. Does that mean there is no hope for conversion over the short term? Certainly if you stop communicating, your chances for making this happen are less likely, but what if you maintain a relevant conversation over a long time?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In working with sales teams, they often focus on immediate prospects and complete their follow up over weeks or perhaps sometimes months if they are good. Still many of those prospects don't convert. The sales person goes on to richer opportunities and the prospect languishes in the database. Oftentimes they are still actively or passively in the market, but just not yet ready to take the next step. With CRM and marketing automation systems, we as marketers can impact what happens. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-rkVkfprSRnNxcsFoguc7-EV2fUjXSnl_kOtELMMIriwfHE9dyZj-iOojzLLTZDisV-fcf8Ai2zQGIi_2mKYO-04ex2LHSLU2mWAgkMUU6zvPCPVUaDRjZdLjF83FylNsBp19Gn-NRU/s1600/20-25%2525.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-rkVkfprSRnNxcsFoguc7-EV2fUjXSnl_kOtELMMIriwfHE9dyZj-iOojzLLTZDisV-fcf8Ai2zQGIi_2mKYO-04ex2LHSLU2mWAgkMUU6zvPCPVUaDRjZdLjF83FylNsBp19Gn-NRU/s200/20-25%2525.png" width="133" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have built and replicated tests in multiple industries where simply by developing an ongoing long term communications strategy, I have consistently seen 20-25% improvements in sales from these prospect databases. Consider a known prospect akin to a nugget of gold. Would you throw that away and ignore it? Would it lose value to you? Obviously, the answer is "no." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The answer to our question then at the start this post is simple. I often told my teams: <b>continue to communicate with a prospect until they buy, die or unsubscribe! </b> And even when they buy, you continue to communicate since then you have the strongest relationship and should endeavor to continue it. Certainly, there is a lot more to how this happens and when, but some simple best practices can get you started.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Best Practices for Long Term Communications</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Know as much as you can about your prospects and use it</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Always personalize your communications</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Create a two-way conversation that helps you learn more</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Use behavioral data to further understand your prospects</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Create simple segments, learn from them and build them over time</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Build a customer journey map and content needs at each stage to drive the conversation</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Don't quit communicating unless you are asked to do so</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Treat every known prospect as the valuable gold nugget that it is and be sure you realize the value from the investment you made in it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you follow these best practices for customer communication, you will not be a SOUR emailer!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-37921446606830998782017-02-23T08:20:00.000-08:002017-02-23T08:20:26.691-08:00EMAIL BLUNDERS - Anatomy of An Email Inbox 2-23-17<span style="font-size: large;">Hello again!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nB9dAqiaQA2kt0SM2DX7WgUPSir1KVQ9LrMEUxDWNUZssicZhbU1F_f_mvW146b90Ou9nhiAwuG6Af7Rajy8AGUi3D_VKJUp-4MtVxGZVsURVZ3DfW8ZzBiQ22Jg-v__4aajwibJe70/s1600/Photo+Feb+06%252C+12+24+50+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nB9dAqiaQA2kt0SM2DX7WgUPSir1KVQ9LrMEUxDWNUZssicZhbU1F_f_mvW146b90Ou9nhiAwuG6Af7Rajy8AGUi3D_VKJUp-4MtVxGZVsURVZ3DfW8ZzBiQ22Jg-v__4aajwibJe70/s320/Photo+Feb+06%252C+12+24+50+PM.jpg" width="272" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been errant in my posts as I have been out of the country and traveling back to Michigan from my few months in Florida. I was fortunate to spend a few weeks with great friends in Panama where I saw some of my old haunts - I lived in Panama many years ago, so it was fun to go back in time. Was able to dance with the natives as well as attend a Jazz Festival in the mountain town of Boquete. It was an amazing and restful trip. The city has grown immensely since I was there and is now an international gem with lots to see and do. Highly recommend you add it to your bucket list!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">BUT, time to get back to business. I read a lot of what is published in the marketplace as a way to understand what everyone else is thinking and talking about as well as to validate the things that I continue to say in my posts. I received an email this week that I thought was worthy of sharing and referring to as it aligns closely with my past posts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I used Marketo in my past role and have attended their conferences for several years. They are a strong contender in the marketing automation space and a good tool. Their recent post spoke of the <a href="file:///C:/Users/sharon/Downloads/Top-Email-Blunders-Marketo%20(1).pdf" target="_blank">Top Email Blunders</a>, so I wanted to share this and expand upon their points, which are all valid and worthy of paying attention to. They completely align with my SOUR Email theme as the blunders they outline are all SOUR! I continue to find it interesting that we are still even having these conversations in this day and age. Good to see that I'm not the only one seeing these challenges that are simple to fix and should be standard strategic and tactical considerations for all email marketers.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Blunder #1 - Wrong Personalization</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">In my post on <a href="https://souremail.blogspot.com/2017/01/data-quality-anatomy-of-email-inbox-jan.html" target="_blank">Jan 18th</a>, I provided the example from Pet Meds where I ordered from them and had the product sent to my mom's home and care of her name, Jean. I even sent them a message that they might have a database problem and that I'm not Jean. Well guess what, they are still SOUR - my last communication from them is still saying "Jean" even though I tried to help them.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAmLZChBRF5ZeXy0C0gUa122uFSzwZ3JdDdO8HKSVF4gQIUiu0Pq-eEB2auPPrNHR66XJwtRE2088YruhTcdXosuaUCfsAyZ6wg6luJ8-4Fd4W5RSpzs46DIXnOsNX5G_MC0jw8cb4qc/s1600/petmederror.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgAmLZChBRF5ZeXy0C0gUa122uFSzwZ3JdDdO8HKSVF4gQIUiu0Pq-eEB2auPPrNHR66XJwtRE2088YruhTcdXosuaUCfsAyZ6wg6luJ8-4Fd4W5RSpzs46DIXnOsNX5G_MC0jw8cb4qc/s640/petmederror.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tips:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Use presonalization ALWAYS</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Insure what you know about your prospect or customer gets integrated into your systems and used</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Audit your database and emails to make sure there are no oddities and fix them when you are made aware of them</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Blunder #2 - Irrelevant Information</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've spoken about this in numerous posts as well. Many marketers continue to "spray and pray" with their email programs using no segmentation, sending the same message and not using the plethora of information they have in their CRMs and legacy systems to truly provide relevant content to their customers. My series of posts reviewing the practices of Beall's, Pulte and the local Tampa TV station highlight some of the good and bad examples of this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Marketo makes the point that almost 75% of consumers say they are frustrated with content that doesn't match their interests! We can do better!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tips:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Use CRM and other data sources to know your prospects and customers</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Leverage the capabilities of your ESP or CRM to use what you know to deliver correct personalized experiences</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Always evolve - your systems should be learning, dynamic programs that are reviewed and adjusted as you gain insights about your prospects and customers - your job is never done!</span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Blunder #3 - Failing to Proof Read Your Emails</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Really? I know we are all busy and trying to quickly get things accomplished, but let's get real. How does it help your credibility as a professional marketer if your emails arrive with errors, broken links, or poor grammar. One of the cautions offered to identify spam emails is poor grammar and spelling. Do you want your brand to be put into this category? At my last company, I was fortunate to have a high "C" (DISC profile) running my email program. She was fanatical about testing and proofing our emails before they went out and this paid off in quality. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tips:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Invest in the time and teams to insure you proof and double proof your emails</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Check them in multiple ISPs for formatting and rendering</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Check all your links, segments and versions and match to the recipients information</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Blunder #4 - Incorrect Cadence</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While I was President of .Com Marketing, I did many seminars and training programs on email marketing and one of the topics I always covered was cadence. One thing I said back then was to ASK your members what cadence they wanted. Today, I see B2B marketers at times providing their members some choice in when they receive content: daily or weekly for example, but very rarely do I see B2C marketers doing the same. More often than not, B2C marketers over communicate, thus becoming irrelevant and ultimately driving away their prospects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tips:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Ask your members at what frequency they would like to receive communications from you and then comply</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Rethink and test cadence to see what drives performance, minimizes unsubscribes and engages the consumer</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Know your customer journey and cycle time and adjust communications to that</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Glad to be back in the saddle. Use these tips to improve your strategy and execution. Want to learn more? I am available for speaking and seminars. Here's some of my upcoming events:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">March 1, 2017 - Women In Consulting Leaders Network - Managing The Customer Journey </span></h4>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Van's Restaurant</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">815 Belmont Avenue</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Belmont, CA 94002</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">April 25, 2017 - International Association of Business Communicators - SOUR Email</span></span></h4>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Location TBD</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Atlanta, GA</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">July 27, 2017 - Southeast Builders Association - CRM Strategy - Leveraging Contact for </span></span>Success</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="box-shadow: none !important; text-shadow: none !important;">Time</span> TBD</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Kissimmee, FL</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's a few more fun shots from my travels.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlTiz3x1p1NnuoGgmTjHj6oU7zs6KFucyKBvN5T60NraIVhNHpjvtqMuFfjyzN3XPqN0Ts_1_AdCzYvUX5yFDnPXqxiE8QpDUZb9P58wzUnTCHZNWqf622JCbzXR835xnH4JBkGR9CAGg/s1600/P2060132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img alt="panama monkey" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlTiz3x1p1NnuoGgmTjHj6oU7zs6KFucyKBvN5T60NraIVhNHpjvtqMuFfjyzN3XPqN0Ts_1_AdCzYvUX5yFDnPXqxiE8QpDUZb9P58wzUnTCHZNWqf622JCbzXR835xnH4JBkGR9CAGg/s320/P2060132.JPG" title="Panama Monkeys" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-42900767014665176362017-01-25T11:46:00.003-08:002017-01-25T11:46:54.093-08:00EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25<br />
<br />
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. <br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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We will take a look today at:<br />
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<b>Pulte</b><br />
<b>Overstock</b><br />
<b>Secret Escapes</b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><u>Pulte</u></b><br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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?<br />
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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!</div>
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Integration Score: D-</div>
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<u>Overstock</u></h3>
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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?</div>
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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.</div>
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Of course they too have the social links across the bottom of the emails, but with no compelling reason to go there.</div>
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Integration Score: D-</div>
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<u>Secret Escapes</u></h3>
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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.</div>
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Really SOUR - No social links, so skip what I said above about ubiquitous - I guess not totally!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiC44uGnFnNJDyWbb78FcXsoWltYGBrDPNwBOgksEpaWQzUGK98VPuPwgjax3FZq_NAK6-SZBNTYWHxxCaBPhyphenhyphenguc-7l1yhG-PEzJ5d3NvtEelDN7willcRB1RY8h6WMYOx6VoIywr4A/s1600/secret_escapes_email_pop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiC44uGnFnNJDyWbb78FcXsoWltYGBrDPNwBOgksEpaWQzUGK98VPuPwgjax3FZq_NAK6-SZBNTYWHxxCaBPhyphenhyphenguc-7l1yhG-PEzJ5d3NvtEelDN7willcRB1RY8h6WMYOx6VoIywr4A/s320/secret_escapes_email_pop.png" width="320" /></a>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!</div>
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Integration Score: C</div>
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Todays Tips</div>
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- Be sure to have a path forward from your social media presence to obtain early "hand raisers" - ASK for email sign ups</div>
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- Give them a reason to engage in another channel (email) and make it prominent on the social space</div>
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- Give more thought to how you position social media within your email communications</div>
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- What are your goals for integration?</div>
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- How do consumers interact in the channels through the customer journey?</div>
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- How to you proactively move your prospects through and between the channels depending on where they are in their personal journey?</div>
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- Effectively use cookies, email sign ins and what you know about your prospects and customers to personalize every experience</div>
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- Be sure to add the appropriate tracking parameters to watch how consumers and prospects move between the various channels and at what stage</div>
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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.</div>
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Don't be a SOUR emailer!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-34574546771898160262017-01-18T08:39:00.003-08:002017-01-18T08:39:49.742-08:00DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18<span style="font-size: large;">DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ioeNe1sQmwjDAj0PYT5ebQdy9CIgkLtXypuXEJUTQFPrQ0ca7R6CGzTyTOmN5tD04IUnRShyphenhyphen9EtHt_eR3wrV4_Rpt0rc4BKvEu41RirFEM9n8Lfdjx88zAhkfqEbfk9jqVn5m4v3BT0/s1600/Untitled+design+%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ioeNe1sQmwjDAj0PYT5ebQdy9CIgkLtXypuXEJUTQFPrQ0ca7R6CGzTyTOmN5tD04IUnRShyphenhyphen9EtHt_eR3wrV4_Rpt0rc4BKvEu41RirFEM9n8Lfdjx88zAhkfqEbfk9jqVn5m4v3BT0/s200/Untitled+design+%25281%2529.png" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">Some people call me a bit nerdy for a marketing executive and I think that is probably true. I started </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Situation</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">What Happened</span></u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_PNf6mHWUwqbbPRg8P1dSsGt9k4d3loAk9fRKLaMGZPvdlCs8Ir7EjipYvrlzSs-AeAAMZGx416VQhTv-yxJjrfUC-KsvW4Wetius7SkrVaYPB4DBnPkkBlK9VcOcRWUYYdP83zBhm4/s1600/PetMed_email_to.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG_PNf6mHWUwqbbPRg8P1dSsGt9k4d3loAk9fRKLaMGZPvdlCs8Ir7EjipYvrlzSs-AeAAMZGx416VQhTv-yxJjrfUC-KsvW4Wetius7SkrVaYPB4DBnPkkBlK9VcOcRWUYYdP83zBhm4/s320/PetMed_email_to.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">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."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">TIPS</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">- Try to think of all the alternate ways people might order from you and make sure your database can handle it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- 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.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Insist upon good data documentation for the data you have and use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Build a strong partnership with your IT teams so they understand what you are trying to do.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-54383186979154437302017-01-11T10:47:00.001-08:002017-01-18T08:40:54.751-08:00EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11<span style="font-size: large;">EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVn71xsR_vAk7DXDijWFfnJ4uGUp27kqzptM1NQH0aox5dW_di2Hks8LXkmek89vCAYrcSgvdut92psLfjtEFVyUHmZ3duTWbRvf_rKygpdoHQHXxMLvXUx44mXWQRxzAVqQt2wifD7Q/s1600/Untitled+design.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img alt="Email strategy" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVn71xsR_vAk7DXDijWFfnJ4uGUp27kqzptM1NQH0aox5dW_di2Hks8LXkmek89vCAYrcSgvdut92psLfjtEFVyUHmZ3duTWbRvf_rKygpdoHQHXxMLvXUx44mXWQRxzAVqQt2wifD7Q/s200/Untitled+design.png" title="Builder Email Strategy" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">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. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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 <a href="https://litmus.com/blog/4-reasons-email-marketings-roi-doesnt-matter">Chad White</a> 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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-68833735645473758882017-01-03T08:53:00.001-08:002017-01-18T08:41:35.306-08:00EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3<span style="font-size: large;">EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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!).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Pulte</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Bealls</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Under my Yahoo account which is a Millennial male, I've been looking at hoodies and water shoes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My Gmail persona is looking for sexy nightgowns and sheets for the bed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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. <a href="https://www.behave.org/case-study/two-too-many-whats-the-optimal-number-of-promotional-emails-to-send-per-week/">Check out</a> this test from July 2015 where the overall winner was a promotional email sent once a week versus twice. The learnings:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- always test</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- know your customers and prospects</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- segment for differing behaviors</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">WFLA</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Still no emails at all to my Yahoo account - boo for you!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">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?</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-60007128307349593592016-12-22T05:27:00.003-08:002016-12-22T05:27:33.962-08:00EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22<br />
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So as I started to interact with my three test sites, I realized when I signed up for the email newsletter with Bealls, like with Pulte, that I hadn't really created an account. So, I went in and did so for both my personas. At this point, they did include the email opt-in with an "opt-out" option in case I don't want them talking to me.<br />
<br />
Now is where things will get interesting. In the account creation, Bealls is starting to learn more about me. In addition to asking for my address and phone number, they are asking my birthday, gender, if I am a full time resident and how I like to shop with them - online versus in store or both. I'm going to alter this a bit between the personas to see what happens:<br />
<br />
Gmail - Dec 19x7, female, seasonal and online<br />
Yahoo - Feb 19x4, male, full time and both<br />
<br />
Having fun now!<br />
<br />
Since signing up with Bealls, I have also been looking at different content under my two personas and based on what I originally input. For my gmail persona, I have visited deals and pajamas as well as capris. In Yahoo, I'm looking at men's Columbia gear and shorts. I even added some camo size 34 shorts to my cart. One thing that happened on my initial click is they prompted me to enter a ZIP code and attach my account to a store which I did. They then presented me with circular deals for that store including holiday items.<br />
<br />
All my home screens are exactly the same regardless if I am signed in or not at this point, so it appears Bealls is not using any web personalization to change my experience based on what they know about me and my browsing behavior.<br />
<br />
I have also been receiving emails from them since I signed up last week. In my Yahoo account, after that initial sign in, I've received 13 emails (since 12/13), about 1-2 a day. I know it is the holiday season, but as I've said in previous posts, how much is too much and what impact will that have on unsubscribes?<br />
<br />
Sadly, in my gmail account, all the emails from Bealls are landing in my spam folder - I had to go look for them. I also have received only 3 emails in this account since the sign in. So my question here is did Bealls purposefully send me fewer to that persona or is there some problem with deliverability. Given that the three I did find landing in my spam folder, I suspect there is a deliverability issue.<br />
<br />
Good news is some the emails are recognizing my browsing behavior and presenting me with relevant content when I open the email after I have browsed particular content on the website. I went in and opened my special offer email that I received the day after I created each account and under the offer, each email presented me different product content based on what I looked at: capris for Google and men's shorts for Yahoo! NOT SOUR email - good job Bealls.<br />
<br />
Another good thing Bealls is trying to do is to get to know me more, so a week after that initial email, they offer an email thanking me for being a part of their "list" - could be better wording, how about "the Bealls shopping family" instead? They also offer me a discount on my next order for answering.<br />
<br />
Bad news and a really simple fix - neither subject lines or body copy are using my first name or recognizing me personally in some way.<br />
<br />
So here we go - my answers for both personas below:<br />
<br />
Yahoo:<br />
Departments of interest: mens, deals (remember they already know I am a guy - should they have pre-checked that?)<br />
<br />
Subjects of interest: new arrivals and offers<br />
<br />
More complete contact information - I'm using my Orlando area information, but not providing my phone number which they want for text messages. Now I'm wondering if they asked this because I didn't provide it on my initial sign up, but given they also ask below about my residence status, which I know I did provide, I'm wondering why they are asking the same thing again.<br />
<br />
They also asked for my residence status, a piece of information I already provided -SOUR - doesn't look like they have systems fully integrated. They should only ask for additional new information unless they want to re-verify it in which case, they should pre-populate this field.<br />
<br />
Gmail:<br />
Departments of interest: women's, markdowns and shoes<br />
<br />
Subjects of interest: style, comfort and offers<br />
<br />
More complete contact information - I'm using my Tampa area information, but not providing my phone number which they want for text messages. <br />
<br />
Now I'm also making things a little interesting and seeing if I can confuse them, so I am looking at shoes under my Yahoo account (even though my preferences don't ask for that and I have told them I am a guy). I will at least look at guys shoes to see where that goes.<br />
<br />
Next week we will look at the other emailers I am watching, but some lessons so far:<br />
<br />
- Use the information you have and don't be repetitive<br />
- Extend your presonalization to the web experience<br />
- Deliver-ability is a big issue that needs to be watched and addressed and is clearly a missed opportunity if you aren't careful. Bealls needs to go talk to Google and see why their emails are getting lost as well as tell their customers what to do to make sure the emails come through<br />
- Use browsing history to impact what is in emails. Good practice here from Bealls, although some of the sale emails don't appear to be using this<br />
- Create an ongoing dialogue with your prospects and customers and use that to offer even more personalization as you get to know them better<br />
- Use members first name in subject line and body - a simple best practice that way too many emailers fail to do with regularity.<br />
<br />
Overall so far, we will give Bealls a "C" for their email programs, mainly for the deliverability issue with Google. While they are doing some good things, there is definitely opportunity for improvement and when the email doesn't even reach the inbox, all those good things have no impact.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-28505104859141403422016-12-13T11:43:00.001-08:002017-01-03T08:28:20.483-08:00EMAIL SIGN UP - Anatomy of an Email Inbox Dec 13EMAIL SIGN UP - Anatomy of an Email Inbox Dec 13<br />
<br />
I have talked in this blog about email strategy and why businesses send emails and how they make them timely and relevant. There's plenty of evidence about the value of email marketing and the ROI. I often wonder however, if we did it really well, how much better could it be. eMarketer's 2016 survey found that on average email delivers 122% ROI - in the top 5 revenue driving channels. That's good and well above the others in the study. I think we can do lots better.<br />
<br />
So today, I'm picking three companies I am currently not subscribed to and signing up for their emails using two different email addresses. The goal will be to see how well they get to know me and what they use to build the relationship with the two different mes. This will be a series of blog posts over the coming weeks and months so that we can watch what transpires and what we can learn.<br />
<br />
I am purposely picking marketers who I think will be a mix of more or less sophisticated in this area to show the contrasts and oppoortunities.<br />
<br />
Pulte Homes - Tampa - I am establishing my winter home in the Tampa area, so will be looking at what area I want to live in and what the properties are that might meet my needs. <br />
<br />
WFLA - Tampa - Our local NBC TV affiliate. I will want to know more about what is going in my local comunity and things I can do for the winter, so these emails from WFLA to these personas will help me stay in tuned with my new community. I am hoping that they will be watching my behaviors as I visit the site and consume content and use this to send me relevant emails.<br />
<br />
Bealls Department Store - New location and home mean I need more stuff.<br />
<br />
Today we will begin with just the initial sign up.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Pulte</u></b><br />
<br />
I started with a search for "new homes Tampa." Didn't find them in paid listings on the first page, but they did make it to the last organic listing on page one. So I clicked on their listing. This led me to the home page which had a nice lifestyle photo, description of what they deliver and map of where their communities are. Other than a small "envelope" icon for "contact us," there was no call to action for signing up or getting information, so I clicked the envelope. That did lead me to a page with options for signing up: financing, information, homeowner questions and repairs. I'm clicking on "information." This led me to a form that is clearly a national form. I'm going to sign up with two slightly different addresses and emails in Tampa area. I left a brief message of the price range of homes I am looking for and that I only want emails at this point. So after I hit enter, which I thought meant I was signing up, I now went to a second screen that told me to create an account and why I should:<br />
<br />
- save design ideas and inspiration to your favorite<br />
- create a design board with favorite items<br />
- save home models you love<br />
- follow Pulte communities and get notified about opening<br />
<br />
Upon creating my account, there was another page of benefits. My initial impression is that this all sounds good, so why are you hiding it behind a tiny icon at the top of the page and taking several steps to tell me why I should engage with you. And, by the way, the benefits were redundant between the pages. Did you think I didn't get it the first time? SOUR?<br />
<br />
My second sign up (Gmail) used a more specific search for Pulte specifically and a different first and last name and email address (so I can distinguish future personalizations). I'm also asking for slightly higher priced homes (in the $300's). <br />
<br />
Slightly better presence with a paid and organic listing when I searched for "Pulte homes Tampa."<br />
<br />
<b><u>WFLA</u></b><br />
<br />
Searching on Tampa TV station, I quickly found the local NBC affiliate - WFLA. The organic listing took me to a very busy home page. This is typical of most media sites, but I guess they think they have to serve everyone, so lots to consume.<br />
<br />
There were a few engagement calls to action within the content including a sign up for weather newsletter and a free download to stay connected on the go. I presume that was for their app. The contact us link in the footer was more for a specific department or question.<br />
<br />
I signed up for the weather newsletter with my two personas. This was a double opt-in, so I have to go verify my sign up in my email address. Good news, my gmail verification showed up quickly. Still waiting to see something in my yahoo mail account and it isn't in the spam folder either. SOUR when you lose someone before you even have them! Once I confirmed my email through my gmail account, there was a second step to "confirm humanity" and insure I wasn't a robot. Now there are two funnel steps to stop me from getting subscribed. While I get that companies want valid email addresses and real people, can we find a better way? At least combine the steps to reduce friction.<br />
<br />
Another interesting thing happened with WFLA. Under the sign up was a "manage subscriptions" option, so I clicked on that. This led me to a page to tell them more about me and sign up for a whole host of other emails (8 in total), none of which they had yet to merchandise or tell me about (at least from the home page). They also asked me to pick my delivery method (html or txt). I'm going to sign up for breaking news from this account and 8 pm news update from the other (that is if my email validation ever shows up - no sign of it yet). Interesting too is they have a "breaking weather" and "daily weather" list - who thought of that? Could these be combined? They will definitely be keeping their content team busy!<br />
<br />
<b><u>Bealls</u></b><br />
<br />
Started here with my standard generic search and did find Bealls in the organic listings mid-page. The listing took me to a Tampa store locator page given I searched in a particular area, so that was anticipating I was looking for a specific location.<br />
<br />
They did have an email sign up about mid-way down the page with a quick sentence telling me why I should sign up and minimizing the initial ask to just my email address. I'm signing up with both emails. Upon sign up, they told me what to expect and how to add them to my safe senders list so I don't miss out on the deals. Generally pretty good. The question will be how will they try to get to know me better and communicate differently. Again, I will visit their site under the different personas to see how well they get to know me and build that relationship.<br />
<br />
None of the three email marketers in our experiment specifically included opt-in permissions in compliance with standard CAN-SPAM email opt-in requirements. WFLA did offer a privacy link which seems not to work as it doesn't go anywhere when I click on it - so definitely SOUR.<br />
<br />
More news next week when we see what kind of communications I am receiving and how specific these are as I begin to interact with the sites in different ways.<br />
<br />
Still no WFLA validation in my Yahoo account now either, so I guess I'm just not going to see any news from them. Wonder if anyone at WFLA even realizes this is happening! SOUR!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-71872208113018161362016-12-05T13:43:00.001-08:002016-12-06T04:24:45.395-08:00PERSONALIZATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Dec 5, 2016<br />
<br />
Today is my birthday. Birthdays are personalizations that are the easiest things to know about someone and use to delight your email members. As part of my topic today, I thought I would do an inventory of my inbox to see who is not being SOUR and using this information about me to catch my attention.<br />
<br />
Now granted, it is only a little after noon as I am starting this, so some companies may still reach out to me, but the sad truth is that I haven't seen too many messages recognizing my birthday. Compare this to my Facebook friends who have been pinging me all day; 75+ and counting. If companies want to have a relationship with me, shouldn't they act more like friends?<br />
<br />
So who did treat me like a friend?<br />
<br />
<u><b>Overstock.com</b></u> - said happy birthday and offered me 10% savings. They even used my name in the subject line and in the body copy and thanked me for the relationship.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Southwest Airlines</b></u> - also used my name in the subject and I liked the engagement - subject line was intriguing: "we brought the party to your inbox." It made me want to know what they meant, so I opened it, then it had a birthday theme and invited me to "take a swing at the pinata for some birthday fun." Again, highly engaging and made me want to click (which I did) to see what I would get. So I actually got a pinata which I could swing at with my cursor. I did and broke it open after several hits for a happy birthday song (in audio - the swinging and hitting of the pinata had audio effects too). I could do it again for more birthday wishes. Only did it twice, but looked like I could go on for a while if I wanted lots more birthday wishes. GREAT JOB delighting me Southwest on my birthday. Now that is a true friend!<br />
<br />
UPDATE: A few late arrivals came from Macy's and Best Buy - thanks for thinking of me!<br />
<br />
Not so good:<br />
<br />
<u><b>Hilton Honors</b></u> - offered me a "gift" so made me think it might be about me, but was really just a regular seasonal email related to the holidays.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Starbucks</b></u> offered me 1/2 off a Frappucino but it had nothing to do with me, my birthday or if I ever bought a Frap from them. I haven't recently, so clearly they aren't using much personalization to talk to me.<br />
<br />
And that's it. Everyone else was into their normal "spray and pray" routine - thinking about holidays and how to drive business in this most important retail season. Given that my inbox contained over 100 emails, the fact that only 2 companies took the time to recognize this simple fact about me is just plain SOUR.<br />
<br />
What gets me most is that the tools we have available allow us to delight daily with simple and sophisticated marketing communications that show we know and care about our prospects and customers, but as email marketers we fail to do so in a big way. So many of us are so far from being great email marketers, it just makes me sad and SOUR. We can do so much better.<br />
<br />
Start today, ask yourself:<br />
<br />
- Am I using the persons first name in every correspondence?<br />
- What little things can I do to know my prospects and customers better and use this to show I care? Like Southwests birthday Pinata game or just by simply recognizing what you know about your members?<br />
- How can you use behaviors and engagement to send more relevant emails?<br />
- How can you build and leverage your systems to empower your email marketing and customer relationship management systems to help you have a real relationship founded on familiarity and connections.<br />
<br />
Let's be better!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-16838589130608587982016-11-22T04:50:00.001-08:002017-04-11T10:22:31.247-07:00<span style="font-size: large;">DELIVERABILITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Nov 22, 2016</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Last week I talked about email metrics overall and some of the things to think about and how to decide what to measure and what it tells you. I've been doing some fall cleaning lately and came upon some old printed reports in my files and thus my post today. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The report I happened upon was titled "The State of Email Metrics and Bounce Management" dated Mar 5, 2007 and published by the Email Experience Council. What I thought was interesting is how little has changed in the industry. One of the main tenants of the article was a need for industry standards around email metrics and the disconnect between email providers and e-mailers themselves. While there have been attempts to create some standards, there is still no enforceable and commonly used set of definitions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I took a look at the conversations going on around the topic of deliverability to see if we can gain more insights beyond what we discussed last week.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Last week, we provided a simple definition as the total number of emails that actually land in someone's inbox. We also mentioned the issue of where in the inbox an email lands and the need to have a send figure to understand the rate of deliverability. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">From the 2007 article, there were several points made that are important and that are still an issue today. Back in 2007 there was inconsistency in how ESPs measure deliverability with 80% using the definition of delivered as total mailed less "all failures" while 20% defined this as only deducting "hard bounces" from mailed. Even more distressing is that 67% of eMailers themselves were uncertain on how deliverability was calculated. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's some of what I found:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- The Digital Marketing Glossary defines "classic" deliverability as "the percent of messages delivered to an inbox relative to total mailed." Not too specific, but consistent with the general historic definition.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- The Email Measurement Accuracy Coalition (EMAC) defines <span style="font-family: inherit;">it as <span style="background-color: white;">the total of e-mail deployed divided into the total amount of successfully delivered messages. The amount successfully delivered is then the total amount attempted minus all registered failures, including hard bounce. A bit more specific, but doesn't say what "all registered failures" means.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">- Bronto defines this as total sent minus number bounced but do not specify if that includes hard and soft bounces, errors or where the message is delivered to. In fact, they state in the</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">ir blog that there is "no clear cut method to track every single email and where it landed." SOUR email in my mind. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">- MailChimp takes a whole page to <u>not define</u> deliverability: </span></span>https://mailchimp.com/about/deliverability/. They also refer to the multitude of "standards" organizations just to stay on top of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Comm100 does a good job of covering all the reasons why something might not be counted as delivered: "e<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">mails that are not delivered may be email addresses that do not exist and were entered into your system improperly, email addresses that have been cancelled or deactivated since your last send, email addresses where the email service provider is experiencing technical difficulties at the time of your email send, or email addresses where the recipient's email account was full and could not receive further messages. </span><span class="text-red" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: red;">Essentially, any email for which a viable destination account was not found is listed as an undeliverable email."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I did a Google Search on "email deliverability definition," I received 22,800 responses. As an email marketer, it is no wonder there is confusion.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Today's Tips for Understanding Email Deliverability</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">- Be sure you have a specific definition from YOUR ESP including what is part of the delivered figure and what is not</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Attempt to understand and obtain metrics on where in the inbox your email lands</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Practice good email list hygiene including using forms that force correct formatting of emails, multi step validation of emails on sign up and ongoing clean up of emails removing hard bounces from your database and fixing of emails with typos or other problems that may invalidate them for delivery</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- If you compare your metrics to industry standards, be sure you understand that definition</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Review deliverability by ISP and understand differences in how they allow emails into their members inbox and where they potentially land</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Track and monitor deliverability over time and watch for anomalies</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Track by ISP uniquely as the mix by ISP can affect your overall rate</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Stay on top of ISP practices and changes to help you diagnose changes in these rates</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Take some time to delve into specific send and look at each email and it's delivery statistic to see if you can identify some trends on where your issues are</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Deliverability is and will continue to be a real issue for mailers, some of which you can control and some you can't. Avoid SOUR deliverability to insure the highest ROI on all your email campaigns.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sources:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">http://digitalmarketing-glossary.com/What-is-Email-deliverability-rate-definition</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">http://content.bronto.com/stats/delivery-performance/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">https://emailmarketing.comm100.com/email-marketing-ebook/email-deliverability.aspx</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-86463273427901519792016-11-15T05:38:00.002-08:002016-11-15T05:38:31.590-08:00EMAIL METRICS - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Nov 15 2016I am a metrics person. I believe that if you don't know where you are going you won't get there and if you don't measure your successes you can't win. Email marketing is one of those areas of marketing that you would think would be easy to create metrics for. However, I believe we generally do a SOUR job of this based on my experience.<br />
<br />
Since these are internal measures, my commentary will be around what these are and should be, what we all should care about and how to set up some good dashboards and metrics to allow for understanding and continual improvement.<br />
<br />
First, what are some of the standard metrics that are bandied about in email marketing?<br />
<br />
Sent Emails<br />
Delivered Emails<br />
Open Rates<br />
Click Through Rates<br />
Unsubscribe Rates<br />
Bounce Rates (hard and soft)<br />
<br />
Other less used metrics include:<br />
<br />
Inbox Placement<br />
Earnings Per Email (click or open)<br />
Conversion Rate<br />
Complaint or Abuse Rate<br />
Forward Rate (sharing rate)<br />
Churn Rate (or list growth rate)<br />
ROI<br />
<br />
Seems like a lot and some of these are not very well understood and are treated differently in the ESPs. Let's take a brief look at each.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Sent Emails</u></b> - When you hit the "send" button, the number of attempts or the number of emails in your list. While this metric is important, it is of limited value in understanding the performance of your campaigns and can be problematic if you have poor list hygiene or sign up processes. For example, if you have invalid formats or old email addresses in your list, this metric could be misleading. However, it is needed to calculate a delivery rate and warn you of any problems in that area.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Delivered Emails</u></b> - This is the total number of emails that actually land in someone's inbox. It does not tell you where in the inbox and without the "send" figure to calculate a rate of deliverability, it is of limited value. It should be tracked and trended however to insure you are not getting caught in spam filters or black listed. Be sure to dive deep and look at this metric by ISP as it can help you diagnose if and where you might have deliverability problems and how to fix them.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Open Rates</u></b> - While important to measure and trend, this metric can be misleading mostly because quite a few people read emails in preview pane and never open them. Different ESPs may also measure open rate differently, for example based on images downloaded, but if these are done automatically, it may record an open even if the reader didn't look at the email. Text emails may be excluded from open rates also. It is a good directional indicator of engagement and awareness of your communications however. Be aware and be sure you understand exactly how your ESP measures and reports this.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Click Through Rates</u></b> - This metric is often spoken of as a highly important one, however, it is totally in the marketers control and without context really tells you nothing. If you measure click through rates, be sure to include a metric on click through opportunities. Any one email could have no click through opportunities or ten. If you do not have an understanding of that, you won't have a true measure of success. When creating reporting templates, be sure to include a field for the click opportunities in each email and then you can categorize click through rates based on that percentage versus just an overall percentage that does not speak to if the reader could have clicked. Also look at where the click through was - did they click on your logo, on a particular piece of content, or on more than one occasion.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Unsubscribe Rates</u></b> - This is a must have metric that does a good job confirming you are not a SOUR emailer. ESPs typically do a good job of capturing this as it is triggered by a direct action from the email recipient. This can be manipulated as well by you based on how you handle the unsubscribe process. If you make it difficult for people to unsubscribe (as I have addressed in an earlier post), you may be under representing the sentiment. Also, if you have failed processes, you may be over counting. For example, my favorite SOUR emailer Younkers, as I mentioned in a previous post, has received numerous unsubscribe requests from me as it didn't appear to be working and I continued to receive their emails even though I asked them not to send. I will report that I have finally quit receiving their emails (for now). I wonder if they saw my post and finally did something about it!<br />
<br />
<b><u>Bounce Rates</u></b> (hard and soft) - This is another metric that could be different based on how your ESP handles it. Some will count a hard bounce after a send has failed three times, but some may allow you to control how often the fail has to happen to count as a hard bounce. Soft bounce means the delivery was temporarily not available, but again can be altered. Be sure you understand exactly how your ESP handles these and measure appropriately. If you have a high hard bounce rate, you can also put yourself in a position of having your emails blocked by ISPs as being SOUR and on the verge of SPAM, so be sure to watch these rates closely to stay on those white lists and not be a SOUR emailer.<br />
<br />
Secondary Metrics:<br />
<br />
<b><u>Inbox Placement</u></b> - This is a lesser used metric, but as the ISPs get more aggressive at filtering and automatically moving incoming emails (especially Gmail), your well crafted message may never even receive the opportunity for the recipient to see if it is placed into a sub-folder without the email owners knowledge. It is difficult to combat this as well since like SEM algorithms, it can be ever changing and different based on the ISPs practices. At least be aware of this and attempt to understand if you are doing things that are making your emails more likely to land in the wrong place.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Earnings Per Email </u></b>(click, open, delivered) - Getting to the heart of why we email, we should be measuring what we get out of these programs. While for some, this may be difficult, if you can, try to tie your actual revenue creation to the email function. Use the base metric that works for you (delivered, opened or clicked), but do attempt to do so. This may require extra work in Google Analytics and your CRM system to properly tag and add parameters to your campaigns, but it will be well worth it. Also consider what role emails play in the customer journey and how to tap into that. One thing I saw in my last role is that Google Analytics was showing us huge numbers of "direct" traffic to our website. We knew we didn't have that high brand recognition to warrant this and after digging in realized that we were not fully capturing the impact of our email programs to reactivate and engage our prospects in our products and ultimately purchase. Having the proper attribution allowed us to better prioritize our overall efforts and leverage our resources more effectively to the highest return activities.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Conversion Rate</u></b> - Like earnings rate, this is another good metric that attempts to tie your end goals to the email function. It can be measured in several ways, but the goal is to understand of those receiving your emails, who is taking the revenue generating action you desire, be it an e-commerce transaction, an appointment or some other metric. It is different from the earning metric as it measures against people or recipients rather than a volume figure such as earnings. Pick the measures that mean the most to your business results.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Complaint or Abuse Rate</u></b> - Similar to unsubscribe rates, these rates are more problematic to your future as they are signals sent to your ISP about you that can cause you to become black listed. Obviously if someone is at the point of angst that they are communicating to someone other than you about your SOUR email, it spells trouble. ISPs also facilitate this differently, so look at it by provider to see differences and identify opportunities for improvement.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Forward Rate</u></b> (sharing rate) - Another metric totally in your control as if you don't provide the opportunity for the forward, there is nothing to measure. Ask yourself how you can use email, like you use social media, to engage your best advocates in continuing your message. While this is another topic and subject for marketing improvement, if you do this, measure and trend to find easy wins.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Churn Rate</u></b> (or list growth rate) - Are you adding new net prospects or is your list stale? This metric will help you understand where you sit and what you need to do to continue to grow your opportunities and fill the top of the marketing funnel. If you have a product with a long sales cycle time, this can be an especially important metric for long term forecasting and growth. Measure how many new email addresses are added to your prospect list after you remove unsubscribes, complaints and hard bounces.<br />
<br />
<b><u>ROI</u></b> - The ultimate goal of all businesses and marketers - how much did you put in and how much did you get out. Email marketing has been proven to have one of the highest return on investments of all marketing tactics. Are you measuring this and trending to insure you improve and grow with this valuable tool? Aga<span style="font-family: inherit;">in, dependent on your business, attempt to tie directly created revenue to costs which include ESP fees, expenses of content and list development and team costs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today's Tips for Better Email Metrics:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">- Be thoughtful and insure you fully understand the nuances of the metrics you choose to use</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">- Select the metrics that will insure ongoing success (unsubscribes, ROI, etc.) and allow for insights and actions and relentlessly track</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">- Be sure to trend metrics over time; watch for seasonality (retailers especially) and other market conditions that can impact these; most ESPs publish standards and averages at least for things like open and click through rates, so reference those to benchmark how you are doing.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">- Sub-segment emails by types and categories and understand what the trends are. It is entirely reasonable to expect 90%+ open rates from certain transnational emails, but far less from others. If you aren't creating segments of emails by type and tracking you will miss problems and opportunities to improve.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">- When looking at your statistics in totality, think about the blend of types of emails and take that into account. You may pat yourself on the back for a big improvement in open rates in a month where perhaps your volume of promotional emails was lower as a percentage of total emails. It may be that you actually had a problem that was masked because your data wasn't granular enough to obtain a complete understanding.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">- Consider a deliverability audit for a deep dive into where and how your emails are being delivered to unmask any issues.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">- Watch for any red flags that can get you on a black list. Once you are on, it is very difficult to get off, so make this a top metric.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Overall, email metrics can insure you invest wisely, learn as you execute, continue to improve and drive notable revenue from this valuable channel. Take the time to build a strategy for you email metrics just like you do for marketing and email overall and put the tools and resources in place to support the channel. Don't have SOUR email metrics and missed revenue!</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-55834719739270196342016-11-08T08:43:00.004-08:002017-04-11T10:22:10.729-07:00<span style="font-size: large;">TESTING - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Nov 8, 2016</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is finally here - voting day! I'm sure most of us are glad to be at this point and moving onward, whatever that brings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">How does that relate to our topic of testing? It is early in the day, but I took a look at my inbox this morning to see if anyone was leveraging the day and in fact some are. Of 54 emails that I received since midnight, 6 had some element of the election theme in them:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Builders Designs subject line: "The Polls are Open for cyber Monday!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Fandango: "Election Day, Movie Style"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">IAB Smart Brief: "How tech companies are getting involved on Election Day."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Groupon: "Elect to save on Tech, Home and More Doorbusters."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">World Market: "We voted. And the winners are..."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Kohls: "Uniting all sides behind our $10 off."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When we think of testing, often subject lines are easy to test and can have dramatic impact and the ESPs do a good job generally of facilitating this. So, first question is: Do you test EVERY single subject line when you deploy emails? You have to think based on the above that at least a few of the people sending these are trying to be relevant. Perhaps not specific to their brand and products, but certainly to what people are likely to be thinking about today. Were these subject lines conceived of and tested with the deployment? Did they win or was I just part of the test cell? How effective were these? All questions we cannot answer specific to these inbox emails, but certainly can and should for ourselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And beyond subject lines, what other elements of emails should we be testing? A lot of these answers depend on you, your product, your strategy, brand and goals. The point is there is a lot to learn while deploying your emails and you should be actively implementing a detailed testing plan to insure you continually improve and drive incremental results.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One thing I like to do as well is keep a log of testing results that not only build and pass on that history but allow you as a marketer to demonstrate the impact of your efforts on driving revenue. Consider if you could tie every test to your KPIs and show that via testing you drove incremental results for your business? Summarize these over the course of a month, quarter and year, and oftentimes you will find you have a compelling story. While there will definitely be wins and some losses, the act of driving this accountability insures the wins will far outnumber the losses.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So how do you figure out a testing strategy and what to test? One website I highly recommend for ideas and insights is <a href="https://www.behave.org/">whichtestwon</a> (now called behave.org). Especially fun to sign up for their emails where they send you a test and let you vote, then tell you the results. And a bonus, in addition to tons of ideas for email testing, there are ones for virtually all your other executions as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's some general categories of items to think about testing related to email marketing:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Certainly <b><u>subject lines</u></b> as we noted above and go beyond just the words. Simple things like punctuation, capitalization, placement of words, use of emojis and more can have a dramatic impact. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- <b><u>Body length</u></b> - I did a test for a client while I was President of .Com marketing. The test had generally the same content but the body copy of one was much longer than the other. When we read the results, we found that while the short copy had more opens, the long copy had more engagement which was what we really wanted. Publishers Clearing House is the king of this kind of long copy engagement with their mailers. That's why there are multiple pages, stickers and things to go through in the envelope. Their testing clearly showed more engagement when they provide more opportunities to do so. This ultimately leads to more entries. We saw those same type of results with our direct mail while I was at Sears Home Services.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- <b><u>Content type</u></b> - there are many options here - should you include benefits, pricing, offers and deals, imagery, what kind of imagery, how much, headlines...again, simple things can make a difference. At Stow, we tested extensively and one thing we found was that simply putting people in images increased performance. Pricing is another area of contention oftentimes in business and when and how you should use and embrace it. Testing of course will tell you, but generally my experience has been that sharing pricing too early in the process can reduce your opportunity for engagement.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- <b><u>Specificity</u></b> - there are some good tests on behave.org that address this. Should you be more or less specific and when would one work better than another? Should you provide detailed steps or general guides? How should you present those specifics: list, within a box, in bold or another color, highlighted...lots of tests to conceive to impact your KPIs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- <b><u>Timing of emails</u></b> - this is one of the topics that I discussed in a past blog and one of my pet peeves. The reality is timing and effectiveness are definitely tied together, but I wonder how many marketers even test timing. If I look at all the endless, irrelevant, SOUR emails I get in my inbox, I think this is a big opportunity for all of us to improve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I could go on with more, but the point is, TEST! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today's Tips for Better Testing:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Get great ideas from <a href="http://behave.org/">behave.org</a> - one of my favorite emails that I love to read.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Have an ongoing testing program for emails (and other areas of marketing).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Set the appropriate KPIs for each test with a hypothesis and expected results.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Accumulate your testing performance and showcase to leadership your wins and the impact you are having on the business. This makes it very easy come budget season as well to obtain the funding for those testing tools and perhaps new ones.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- ALWAYS test your subject lines.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Leverage the built in testing tools that your ESP provides as well as Google's testing capabilities or other paid providers. I especially like Optimizely as a tool that is easy to use and allows for fast learning</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Change your culture to be one of continuous testing where failure and learning are embraced as an important part of growth and improvement. Leverage the great tools out there to learn: <a href="http://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/testing-targeting/ab-testing.html">Adobe Target</a>, O<a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">ptimizely,</a> Google and your ESPs. Take the time to deliver a better experience to your prospect and customers. They will reward you with higher loyalty and bottom line results and you will not be a SOUR emailer!</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-27307196096698181452016-11-02T05:11:00.004-07:002016-11-02T11:42:47.840-07:00EMAIL STRATEGY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Nov 2, 2016<br />
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Email statistics show that on average 18% of emails are opened. Now we all know that a lot of people view their emails in preview panes and can get the idea of what you have to say without opening them. In fact, Email Labs says that 69% of at-work email recipients read in preview pane.<br />
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So why are we even talking about open rates? We need to ask ourselves what is the purpose of our email marketing, the subject line and content and how do we measure the effectiveness of these? Obviously, the subject line is meant to tell the reader what the message is about and to catch attention. But, like those really creative television ads that everyone remembers but no one buys as a result of, there needs to be more than a catchy subject line and more thought put into our emails and why we are sending them.<br />
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We spoke in our post on October 6th about email strategy overall. Today, I'd like to focus in a bit on the subject lines, content and what that tells us about a companies email strategy and what we can learn.<br />
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So, as we think about our subject lines, let's start with what are and should be our goals and metrics. Obviously open rates can be used as a comparative metric for the goal of gaining attention, but what else should we consider when assessing subject lines? Do you and can you tie your emails to actual web visits (click throughs) and transactions? If you do, how does this fit within the overall customer journey? What role do you want emails and the subjects and content of those to play in your overall communications? Depending on who the person is, what the content is and what your product is, email could be more or less important to the journey towards purchase and play a role in how you manage that relationship and what you want to deliver in this channel.<br />
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Let's look at an example from clothing retailers to illustrate.<br />
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I have used many of my favorite clothing retailers as examples in past posts, organizations such as Macy's, Loft, White House, Black Market and Chicos. My relationship with them is about need and desire to be fashionable, up-to-date, buy and own quality clothing that will last, be functional and perhaps to fulfill a specific clothing need such as for an event or activity.<br />
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When I look at 20+ of my recent emails however, virtually all the subject lines focus on sale messages:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Loft: <span style="white-space: nowrap;">50% OFF = love at first bite (we mean, sight)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Macy's: </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: nowrap;">On the ballot: big savings on all your fave accessories!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: nowrap;">White House Black Market: </span><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Columbus Day Sale Starts Now.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Chicos: </span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: nowrap;">A Berry Good Deal: 50% Off Sale</span></span><br />
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Are they doing this because their data shows that promotional subject lines have the best open rates or do they have data that shows this drives the best immediate sales? Is this the best way to add value and build relationships with customers and prospects or are we as marketers driving less value to our brands by constantly offering deals and selling only based on a deal? Are we even thinking about ways to engage our customers via email other than by offering a deal and trying to drive an immediate sale? Is there something more to the subjects and email communication that we should be considering?<br />
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I know as a consumer, I would be interested in reading about latest trends and colors, seeing great ideas on combining tops and pants or what the hot accessories are this month. We buy fashion magazines, so clearly we are interested in that kind of content. However, the retailers we buy the products from don't help us with that type of content via email. I ask, if I was receiving this type of content would I think first of that brand when I had the need for clothing and would I be more willing to buy it at a premium or at least not discounted? Would this be a better way to solidify my long term relationship with that retailer and thus build lifetime customer value for them? Perhaps the answer is "no" and this is not SOUR eMail. There is the classic example of JC Penney and their attempt to become an everyday value retailer. Now I am sure this strategy didn't fail due to a poor email strategy, but it speaks to the challenge for marketers of remaining relevant, driving value and becoming the brand of choice when clothing (or any product or that matter) is needed.<br />
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How do we develop a thoughtful, relevant, personalized and timely email strategy that connects our customers and prospects to our brand in a meaningful way and drives value for both of us?<br />
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Today's Tips for Better Email Strategy:<br />
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- Understand the customer journey and what role email plays and can play for your products and brands.<br />
- Ask your customers what kind of content they care about and deliver it via email. <br />
- Think about how this email content connects to your overall content strategy and how you tie your communication vehicles together for a comprehensive strategy.<br />
- Think about different types of email, what makes them relevant and when and how to deliver them. So for example for our clothing retailers, should they be sending fashion trends content during the debut season for designers? A good example of providing value beyond the sale is from Shaw Industries. They sell flooring products, but do an excellent job of making flooring experiential. Each year they feature a color of the year to show that flooring choices are more than just the carpet or hardwood you buy and giving you a bigger reason to care about their brands.<br />
- Make sure you focus on the right metrics in your emails and consider that you should have different metrics based on the type of emails. <br />
- When looking at email statistics, classify the emails by type and set metrics standards based on those types. For example, promotional emails, transaction emails, newsletters versus sales emails should have different metrics.<br />
- Change the cadence of your emails based on the type of content, subject and based on what consumers desire and what you know about them and their behaviors. A good article was recently published by Marketo and one of the points covered is cadence and the impact of good segmentation and targeting. The chart below shows graphically what this looks like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBCtHY5E0OANBSAdXkFGlW5BhNefQXeo_7-iQCG6B9IGj5qG4B0nntkGb36uwCrLNwcAOhj3e4L4qD0CruOdA3_PzjJTIqgoVwjicN1N2wsfrs2McHojdyQianJ4Op-3qg5I6hs6R0_s/s1600/email_ctr_chart_marketo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBCtHY5E0OANBSAdXkFGlW5BhNefQXeo_7-iQCG6B9IGj5qG4B0nntkGb36uwCrLNwcAOhj3e4L4qD0CruOdA3_PzjJTIqgoVwjicN1N2wsfrs2McHojdyQianJ4Op-3qg5I6hs6R0_s/s320/email_ctr_chart_marketo.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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- And of course, test and learn on a continual basis. <br />
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Use these email strategy tips to create an insightful, actionable and ROI driven approach to email marketing that wins for both you and your customers. Don't be a SOUR emailer with no strategic approach to your email marketing efforts!<br />
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Source:<br />
Marketo <a href="https://www.marketo.com/ebooks/top-email-marketing-blunders-and-how-to-avoid-and-recover-from-them" target="_blank">Email Blunders</a><br />
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<h3 id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478022232144_107197" role="presentation" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span class="subject" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478022232144_107196" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-size: 18px; left: 0px; margin-right: 140px; max-width: 80%; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; top: 10px; white-space: nowrap;" title-off="" title="Columbus Day Sale Starts Now."><br /></span></h3>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17356856913427485686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4776254839116844915.post-5929246113437988962016-10-26T06:56:00.001-07:002017-04-11T10:22:56.474-07:00<span style="font-size: large;">UNSUBSCRIBES - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - SOUR eMail Oct 26, 2016</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The unsubscribe process is another one of those elements of email marketing that just makes me SOUR! Too many marketers do not take into consideration my desire to leave them and the difficulty of doing so can sometimes be infuriating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">First, the law actually prescribes how unsubscribes should work. Here's the exact wording: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , "nimbus sans l" , sans-serif;">"You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While this allows for some latitude, it is clear that the actions I need to take should be limited and brief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some do this extremely well and even brand it via the "SafeUnsubscribe" that Constant Contact users experience.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXq2iHaX_7n9AhyhxPF0LMUBvVTGQvohj-d56J4ylXIWZ4qLDgd7nlblAiL5Yz0Jvb53xsLbUlgRyu7Ju5Q45e_laTxJEjkSc-pwlWzJSmgRjAYtlxtUVUn3uWb4lRRPAvgFAqSPa-Hk/s1600/safeunsub.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSXq2iHaX_7n9AhyhxPF0LMUBvVTGQvohj-d56J4ylXIWZ4qLDgd7nlblAiL5Yz0Jvb53xsLbUlgRyu7Ju5Q45e_laTxJEjkSc-pwlWzJSmgRjAYtlxtUVUn3uWb4lRRPAvgFAqSPa-Hk/s400/safeunsub.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Others bury it in very small type or with other options to make it harder for you to find. While I get that they don't want you to leave, I would suggest they do a better job with what they send. Then I wouldn't be tempted to want to quit receiving these emails. I'm leaving these the way they were in my email to demonstrate how small they really are.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4zVcWCXSw8Z-Ft5-v6b-cABqEnFPvu9KfdgKgI-YBfb9abYrmFKsNlVoRYxnN5s7V4jQkYXfH1CnuRQySIeoDFxJ5ciTnyDO_W-rg7886iZUdCTNs2xwKwscnKu9TpfGHx7m49i-rj6M/s1600/zulily.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="49" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4zVcWCXSw8Z-Ft5-v6b-cABqEnFPvu9KfdgKgI-YBfb9abYrmFKsNlVoRYxnN5s7V4jQkYXfH1CnuRQySIeoDFxJ5ciTnyDO_W-rg7886iZUdCTNs2xwKwscnKu9TpfGHx7m49i-rj6M/s320/zulily.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeHHIE4RekPJ8kYOgxL9cZ4Twv6Xdne5IA347-qmn1TmZDw2hZ1wYLBE-bG9re7QS2d_LZKUNJep0LbJYgmiE9f2kWlzHgVRNW0JiKfEdflNuq0_u-tvPBxDx4eDPoZNuHsWsfsavuh4/s1600/grouponunsub.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="27" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeHHIE4RekPJ8kYOgxL9cZ4Twv6Xdne5IA347-qmn1TmZDw2hZ1wYLBE-bG9re7QS2d_LZKUNJep0LbJYgmiE9f2kWlzHgVRNW0JiKfEdflNuq0_u-tvPBxDx4eDPoZNuHsWsfsavuh4/s320/grouponunsub.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It also makes me SOUR when they make me go to a web page and then I have to re-enter my email address. Hello! I just came from an email you sent me and dynamic programming allows you to easily pass the email address to the page, or even better just say thank you for unsubscribing and be done with it. You have already made me unhappy to the point of not wanting to hear from you. Do you really think it helps to make it hard for me to say good bye? What brand value does that drive?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So here's a summary of 10 of the emails in my inbox today and what is good and bad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><a href="http://www.anythinginstainedglass.com/" target="_blank">Anything in Stained Glass</a></u> - seems that smaller companies using Constant Contact have it made as they benefit from the platforms method for unsubscribing. The unsubscribe is just one click and the platform thereafter insures you don't receive emails without the sender even having to think about it, so kind of idiot-proof. Congratulations to Constant Contact!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>World Market</u> - unsubscribe was buried in the footer and very small. They did remember who I was so I didn't have to re-enter my email address, but they did make me check and uncheck preference boxes to keep getting some, all or none of what they had to send. While this isn't necessarily bad, it should be part of a preference center and not combined with the simple act of unsubscribing. Remember once I get to this step, I'm not happy - don't make it harder for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Eventful</u> - they make me read to figure out where I even need to click to unsubscribe (the link is "click here" within a sentence that says "to unsubscribe from other deals...") Once I click, they make me tell them again: "are you sure you want to unsubscribe?" Really? I'm checking yes just because you made me even more SOUR.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Hampton Inn by Hilton</u> - the unsubscribe link is one of several options. Once I clicked, they gave me the option of what I was unsubscribing to - just these special offers or all of Hilton communications. They also populated my email address for me - see I knew it could be done! They also tell you how long it will take - good - by law, they have 10 days to discontinue sending you emails.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Coffeeforless.com</u> - grouped with other options of "preferences" and "forward to a friend." Once I clicked, I did have to reconfirm with a second click and they also gave me the option of changing my preferences with another link.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Hotwire</u> - by the way, I love these guys and always use them for personal travel for hotels and cars. Always get good deals where I want and I like getting to try hotels I might not otherwise find. Staying at the Gwen in Chicago over Thanksgiving which I booked through them. So, even though I won't unsubscribe, they again have the unsubscribe grouped with other options and are a bit busy once I click combining preference changes with the unsubscribe process. They try to be a bit subtle and dray your eyes away from the "unsubscribe all" in an attempt to keep you on the list.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><a href="https://homewarranty.firstam.com/" target="_blank">First America Home Warranty</a></u> - I included this one here to make the distinction between transactional and promotional emails. I received this email in response to a service request I placed for my home. Transactional emails do not require unsubscribe options and this one did not have one. While some might include as a courtesy, it is not required via the CAN-SPAM law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Younkers</u> - the emailer I put at the top of my SOUR list. They provide the unsubscribe option within a long list of choices, almost purposely to hide it from me. On the landing page, they bury the unsubscribe in a preference center, long form that asks if I want to change my frequency (actually good), change my email address (not sure why that is there) or select from a long list of content types that might be in my emails (also good, although I don't have any evidence that they are using this). But most SOUR - I have actually unsubscribed from their emails many times over the past several MONTHS and they still keep sending me emails. I did it again today, so after I scrolled down through all those choices and clicked to unsubscribe, they added insult to injury by asking me why. I ask - if you were monitoring your database and had a good handle on your email statistics, wouldn't you know what was working or not? Actually, I would really like to help these guys and even sent a LinkedIn message to their CMO. Sorry you aren't listening!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><a href="http://cmo.com/">CMO.com</a></u> (Adobe) - I don't put many B2B email samples in my posts, and this is part of future conversations as in general I think B2B marketers do a better job at email marketing. One click from the unsubscribe link at the bottom and I was done. They told me who I was receiving the email from and once I clicked, I was done - no re-typing my email address, no questions, no preferences, just done. Now I didn't really want to do that, so now I will go back in and resubscribe, but it should be really that simple. The only improvement would be a link on the confirmation page to re-subscribe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>CNN Breaking News</u> - I'm surprised that an organization like CNN is doing such a poor job. Now, I like getting my breaking news emails, but the unsubscribe mechanism is just SOUR. They actually don't include a link but only a long URL that I have to cut and paste into my browser. When I do so, they make me type in my email address to unsubscribe. All I can say is "wow." </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Unsubscribes</span></b><br />
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Today's Sample: 10 emails</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Overall Grade: C</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Top Performer: Anything in Stained Glass (Constant Contact) and CMO.com (Adobe) - Grade A</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My rating is based on the unsubscribe process itself and the ease of unsubscribing. If you are doing a great job of email marketing, making your messages relevant, timely and of interest, very few of your subscribers will want to go here. If they do, then you should happily and easily let them go and look at your practices to see how you can improve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today's Tips to Improve Your Inbox Anatomy and not be a SOUR eMailer:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">- Make your unsubscribe as simple and easy as possible with only one click required.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Allow people to manage email preferences for type of content and frequency of emails, but keep that as a separate option in a preference center. AND make sure if you ask for this that you use it to make their emails more personalized.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Don't bury the unsubscribe with other options and in long sentences. However, do place "preferences" in close proximity so they can see that they can change if they don't want to be completely gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Make the word "unsubscribe" be the link, not "click here" and certainly not a URL.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Use a preference center to allow people to select what they want and when; make this part of the subscription process (future post topic).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Make sure you abide by the law and honor the unsubscribe request within 10 days. There are financial implications of not doing so - you can be fined up to $16,000 for every infraction.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- Don't ask for reasons why they unsubscribe - use your data to figure that out.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">- On the unsubscribe landing page, thank them, let them know how they can opt back in (with a link directly there) if they want and how long it will take for the changes to take effect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Use these unsubscribe process tips to make sure you meet CAN-SPAM requirements and to manage a process that is required but undesirable. Don't be a SOUR emailer and you will minimize these clicks.</span><br />
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