EMAIL BLUNDERS - Anatomy of An Email Inbox 2-23-17

Hello again!

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!

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.  

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 Top Email Blunders, 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.

Blunder #1 - Wrong Personalization

In my post on Jan 18th, 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.

Tips:

-  Use presonalization ALWAYS
-  Insure what you know about your prospect or customer gets integrated into your systems and used
-  Audit your database and emails to make sure there are no oddities and fix them when you are made aware of  them

Blunder #2 - Irrelevant Information

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.  

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!

Tips:

-  Use CRM and other data sources to know your prospects and customers

-  Leverage the capabilities of your ESP or CRM to use what you know to deliver correct personalized experiences

-  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!

Blunder #3 - Failing to Proof Read Your Emails

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. 

Tips:

-  Invest in the time and teams to insure you proof and double proof your emails

-  Check them in multiple ISPs for formatting and rendering

-  Check all your links, segments and versions and match to the recipients information

Blunder #4 - Incorrect Cadence

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.

Tips:

-  Ask your members at what frequency they would like to receive communications from you and then comply

-  Rethink and test cadence to see what drives performance, minimizes unsubscribes and engages the consumer

-  Know your customer journey and cycle time and adjust communications to that

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:

March 1, 2017 - Women In Consulting Leaders Network - Managing The Customer Journey 

5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The Van's Restaurant

815 Belmont Avenue

Belmont, CA 94002

April 25, 2017 - International Association of Business Communicators - SOUR Email

11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Location TBD

Atlanta, GA

July 27, 2017 - Southeast Builders Association - CRM Strategy - Leveraging Contact for Success

Time TBD

Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center

Kissimmee, FL

Here's a few more fun shots from my travels.

EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

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

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

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

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

We will take a look today at:

Pulte
Overstock
Secret Escapes

Pulte

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

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

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

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

Integration Score:  D-

Overstock

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

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

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

Integration Score:  D-

Secret Escapes

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

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

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

Integration Score:  C

Todays Tips

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

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

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

     -  What are your goals for integration?

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

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

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

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

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

Don't be a SOUR emailer!

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

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

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

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

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

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

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