EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

EMAIL INTEGRATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 25

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

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

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

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

We will take a look today at:

Pulte
Overstock
Secret Escapes

Pulte

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

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

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

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

Integration Score:  D-

Overstock

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

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

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

Integration Score:  D-

Secret Escapes

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

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

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

Integration Score:  C

Todays Tips

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

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

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

     -  What are your goals for integration?

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

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

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

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

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

Don't be a SOUR emailer!

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

DATA QUALITY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Jan 18

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

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

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

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

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

What Happened

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

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

TIPS

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

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

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

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

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

EMAIL STRATEGY for BUILDERS Jan 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 3 Update Jan 3

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

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

Pulte

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

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

Bealls

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

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

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

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

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

WFLA

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

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

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

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

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

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22

EMAIL SIGN UP - Week 2 Bealls Dec 22

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.

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:

Gmail - Dec 19x7, female, seasonal and online
Yahoo - Feb 19x4, male, full time and both

Having fun now!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

So here we go - my answers for both personas below:

Yahoo:
Departments of interest:  mens, deals (remember they already know I am a guy - should they have pre-checked that?)

Subjects of interest:  new arrivals and offers

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.

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.

Gmail:
Departments of interest: women's, markdowns and shoes

Subjects of interest:  style, comfort and offers

More complete contact information - I'm using my Tampa area information, but not providing my phone number which they want for text messages.

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.

Next week we will look at the other emailers I am watching, but some lessons so far:

-  Use the information you have and don't be repetitive
-  Extend your presonalization to the web experience
-  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
-  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
- Create an ongoing dialogue with your prospects and customers and use that to offer even more personalization as you get to know them better
- Use members first name in subject line and body - a simple best practice that way too many emailers fail to do with regularity.

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.

EMAIL SIGN UP - Anatomy of an Email Inbox Dec 13

EMAIL SIGN UP - Anatomy of an Email Inbox Dec 13

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bealls Department Store - New location and home mean I need more stuff.

Today we will begin with just the initial sign up.

Pulte

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:

- save design ideas and inspiration to your favorite
- create a design board with favorite items
- save home models you love
- follow Pulte communities and get notified about opening

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?

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).

Slightly better presence with a paid and organic listing when I searched for "Pulte homes Tampa."

WFLA

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.

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.

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.

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!

Bealls

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

PERSONALIZATION - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Dec 5, 2016

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.

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?

So who did treat me like a friend?

Overstock.com - 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.

Southwest Airlines - 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!

UPDATE:  A few late arrivals came from Macy's and Best Buy - thanks for thinking of me!

Not so good:

Hilton Honors - 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.

Starbucks 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.

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.

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.

Start today, ask yourself:

-  Am I using the persons first name in every correspondence?
-  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?
-  How can you use behaviors and engagement to send more relevant emails?
-  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.

Let's be better!