A question of surveys

I seem to be getting a lot of surveys right now - all prompted by email. In principle, I think that's a good thing - customer interaction logically follows customer engagement, and if you have dialogue via email, why not make the most of it.

But, and it is a big but, without exception, all of these emails have left me cold. Why? Because they are without exception from emailers who have never engaged me - companies from who's lists I am simply too lethargic to unsubscribe.

And to compound matters, they seem to recognise this - by trying, and I use the word in it's broadest sense, to incentivise me to take part in their survey.

Now, again, in principle I am all in favour of this - incentives are great. But they must be good incentives, or they actually disenfranchise readers.

Complete our really boring survey and go into the draw to win one of 3 $50 vouchers. Whoopy-do!

And it gets worse. For some reason, companies outsource not only the mechanics of the survey, but also the wording of it. These surveys completely fail to continue the dialogue style of email which can be so engaging. Impersonal barely covers it. Inadequate is about right. They certainly don't inspire you to eagerly await the next.

So if you have a well engaged database, and you want to interrogate them, do it properly - make the incentive worthwhile, write the survey questions yourself, and then you might get some decent results.

Why are you selling this?

Many retailers who use email as a marketing channel send their customers a weekly shot of offers. I like the idea. In principle.

But their is a perception danger which seems to get overlooked, especially when those offers appear very good. "Why are you selling these, and how come they are available at such good prices"

In other words, is this just a load of unsold crap you need to offload quickly on us poor unsuspecting punters?

Now that may very well be the case, but it's not advisable to say so. Rather than giving the impression this is something you want to sell, you have to presnt your weekly offers in such a way as to craete demand, and highlight yourself as a valued supplier to that demand.

There are three basic strategies for doing this:

1. With every email, emphasise and re-emphasise your mission - to deliver great product at great prices to your favourite customers - you email ones

2. Underline that these offers are only available by email and to email recipients

3. Theme the offers - provide a reason for them to appear in this weeks email.

It should be marketing 101, but for some reason many email markeetrs ignore it, and give their audience the entirely wrong impression - every week.

That missing email!

Sorry, it ended up in my spam folder!

This is now in line for the most overused and underbelieved excuse of 2011.

Three times last week I heard this - from three separate clients, none of whom had ever previously had an email of mine land in their spam folder before.

By some strange quirk of fate, all 3 emails dealt with a similar subject - invoices, and remarkably all were overdue, unpaid invoices.

It falls into the "cheque's in the post" class of excuses, and curiously enough that's what two of these clients went on to claim.

In short, it is now so unbelievable that everyone automatically assumes it is a lie. I mean, nothing, especially from a trusted source, goes into the spam folder now, does it?

We have to presume spam filters work, at least to a degree, don't we?

Surround Sound Marketing

I have just heard the greatest phrase since sliced bread - Surround Sound Marketing - which basically means screaming at your audience via email, mobile and social media.

Sounds great (no pun intended) in isolation, but give the very low barriers to entry, if any, presumable, if it catches on as a defined concept, then most recipients are going to start turning the volume down where many of their surround sound marketers are concerned -in other words, unsubscribe, lest they be deafened.

It's yet another example of how shallow marketing is nowadays - it should not be about the loudest noise, it should be about the most actute message delivered by the most appropriate medium.

The non specific offer

There seems to be a rather disturbing trend developing in NZ email marketing - I feel safe being specific about the location because I have not seen it anywhere else.

I call it the non specific offer (NSO) - and I have had 4 or 5 of them this week. NSO emails all seem to look the same - a lot of preview pane real estate taken up with branding, and then an offer without details - usually along the lines of click here to learn more.

It is often as non specific as telling you no more than the identity of the retailer and some general details - 15% off special deals this month, for example.

Putting aside the obvious accusation of laziness as a reson for it, I wonder if it is good practice - I mean, presumably some though has gone into it as a strategy?

Conventional wisdom says that emails and related calls to action should be focussed - well, it's certainly that. But I think it lacks engagement. And it's too assumptive - there's no bait on the hook, not really.

It seems to me the sort of marketing that might work better on Facebook or the like. It's reactive. Emaio is a very personal level of dialogue, and the NSO seems to leave that behind - sending a flyer isn't personal.

So I don't think it will work. But it will be interesting to see if it catches on.

An email newsletter from a digital media agency landed in my inbox today. It urged my business to get a Facebook page, extolled the many virtues and benefits of so doing, and then helpfully advised me that if needed, they could help me set it up. I presume a fee would be involved. My first reaction was to say that the sort of companies who need help setting up a Facebook page have no place in the digital media arena. Then I reread their list of great reasons to have one. At the end of this highly tenuous and often desperate list, I wondered whether any company should bother. A year ago the airwaves were full of digital marketers banging on about ROI and how Facebook would be a contributing factor, nay, a leading one in your digital campaign. Now they are talking about ROR - return of relationship, an as yet undefined and again highly tenuous concept which presumably means their is no ROI, but if we invent something called ROR then that will go someway to making up for the disappointment of not getting any ROI. Then of course there are the many reasons why a company Facebook page can actually severely damage your customer relationships. Facebook takes what could / should be a private conversation between company and customers and brings it into the public domain. When those comments turn negative, enormous damage can result. Sure, you can moderate it, but who monitors their facebook page 24/7 - only those who can afford to have someone 24/7 keeping tabs on what the people say. Then there';s the old dwindling content factor - running out of interesting posts, because lets face it, there really not that much great and interesting news to keep your hordes of likers interested. And now that every company they do business with has a Facebook page, and they are being heavily incentivised to like them all, it's practically a full time job just following the posts of the companies you do business with. Then when are you going to read their tweets? The biggest reason that Facebook is still around is that it is worth billions, and it is worth billions because some heavyweight institutions have lent it a lot of money, and their only chance right now of getting it out is to say it's value just keeps increasing and hope someone takes it off them. Remember the early days of the web - Elephants graveyard of poorly conceived websites. FB is / will be the same.

Stats we like!

Statistics / metrics are a major part of online marketing - their exactness humbles traditional media.

Below are a few just released that we find particularly noteworthy:

In 2010, 30% of total email time was devoted to commercial emails, compared to 17% in 2005. (Merkle)

90-100% of Millennials (Ages 18-33) engage in email as an online activity. (Pew Research Center)

90% of adults internet users in every age group subscribed to emails from brands, while significantly fewer "liked" companies on Facebook or followed them on Twitter. (ExactTarget)

What conclusions can we draw from these - pretty much what we want, as with all stats, but I think the following are inescapable:

1. Facebook and Twitter will never replace email - just complement it

2. Email is a channel that demands, and achieves attention

3. Tomorrows customers are highly emailcentric - always remember this, because they are your future.

It's good to see stats suppoirting our belief that email is alive and well, and growing, not shrinking in significance.

Timing

Today is the day after the Christchurch earthquake. A nation reels in shock and horror as the full extent of the disaster is revealed. It is hard to focus on anything else, just as it is hard to gain a sense of perspective on what has happened.

Today I have also received no less than 16 marketing emails, not spam, but legitimate ones from lists to which I am subscribed.

I am staggered. Is it stupidity, or just a plain lack of sensitivety?

Either way it is wrong. This is not a day for email marketing. I have unsubscribed from all of them. I hope, if you get them, you do too.

The next big hurdle!

Something new and potentially devious has just appeared in the world of email marketing. It relates specifically to delivery, and to those addresses on your database with a gmail, yahoo or hotmail suffix - it's called engagement filtering, and it's the latest weapon in the war on spam.

Engagement filtering will judge your email based on how well it engages the recipient - how they react to it - clicking links, replying etc - the first time that filtering has been based on positive behaviour.

If engagement levels are low, then so will your sender reputation be.

This poses all sorts of challenges for email marketers - to be seen as a good sender and avoid widescale filtering by the big 3, you need mechanisms in each and every email you send which prompt either response of clicking. In other words, your copy has to be very engaging and relevant.

Now, many people say this is a good thing - the industry is forcing email markeeters to do a better job. Fair point.

But at the same time, it effectively prohibits the sending of passive announcements.

It's another typically reactive measure by the big 3 to the spam problem. It's not the answer, and I suspect all it will mean is a lot of legitimate emails will fail to reach recipients.

Which given that 74% of hotmail users say the reason they have a hotmail account is to channel all commercial email to, doesn't make much sense.

It's the end of email, Zuckers

So Facebook's new product is signalling the end of email, is it?

I suppose you have to salute Mark Zuckerberg - after all he does dominate the world of social media.

But Facebook is hardly making any money, it's rivals are collapsing around it, and presumably he needs plenty more investment to carry on. So statements, and products such as his new chat mail are inevitable - but perhaps to be taken with a pinch of salt.

His comment, for example, that subject lines are so formal is a good example of where he is going wrong. Subject lines are vital in deciding what messages to read, and when.

Zuckerberg may be a visionary. He may be predicting the future. But in doing so he is missing the present. Email, even in it's purest form is still an evolving tool - both for ordinary communications, and for business marketing.

Very few businesses have Facebook predominant audiences, but most have email based ones. Very few companies have so far really worked out how to use Facebook as a marketing tool with any great degree of success. Quite a lot are getting the hang of email.

Facebook still blurs too much the distinction between private and business - it's use during office hours is frowned upon by too many right now.

So here's to you, Mr Zuckerberg. The only way you can be a presence in the email market is to try and change it, and we salute you for trying. But the end of email? Not yet, methinks.

Upping the preview pane impact

The importance of making the right impact in the preview pane cannot be overestimated.

So many companies still insist on dominating this valuable real estate with a web type banner, which doers little more than show a repetitive picture, and at best slightly add to the branding of the email.

With images disabled in so many browsers nowadays, the impact of this banner is in fact a negative one – especially as many companies also neglect to recognise the value of compelling alt text – mind you, some browsers disable that as well. What a battle.

There is a simple answer – we now recommend it to all clients – and it is working.

Summarise in no more than two lines the key message of your email, and place that at the very top – above any images, web versions etc – so it is the very first thing readers see.

Try it – it works!

Want to discuss? jflay@inbox.net.nz

Incentivised database growth

Using competitions and incentives to get people to sign up to receive your email information is a tried and tested formula - inasmuch as it does generate response.

But how valid is it in the modern marketplace?

Sign up competitions are two a penny - to stand out, organisers are increasingly forced to offer expensive prizes - and I wonder how often they really show a worthwhile ROI?

For starters, people who sign up are doing so primarily to win the prize, not because they specifically want to receive your marketing emails or newsletters. Expect a heavy initial unsubscribe rate, however well you do in engaging them with your first send out. It's not a reflection on your email or it's content, simply on how the recipients were gathered. But it is a reality. If 40% unsubscribe initially, and another 30% in the first few weeks, was it worthwhile?

Then there's the issue of how quickly you get in touch with them. Many companies, especially those who choose to gather their emails on bits of paper, often wait months before actually using their newly found database. They might as well have not bothered, as most will have forgotten signing up, why they signed up, and why they might want to continue receiving your information.

Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting abandoning competitions and incentives as way to grow your database.

But I do think it should only be a small part of your strategy for database growth, and if you do do it, make sure you follow up quickly, and effectively.

Want to talk more about this? jflay@inbox.net.nz

Unsubscribe!

I have been thinking about unsubscribes this week.

Clients tend to look at unsubscribes from a very personal perspective. They fail to take into account any number of factors - such as how the database was gathered in the first place. If it came together through an incentive programme, then a good percentage of the database will be there because of their interest in the incentive, not the subject the client wishes to communicate to them. It's only natural to get a high unsubscribe rate with that.

Audiences usually fall into 3 categories - regular readers, occasional readers and grey readers - those who don't really read client emails at all, but can't be bothered to unsubscribe - reader lethargy. Those are the ones you want to unsubscribe, and a healthy number would be 0.2% per send out. Any less than that, and the audience are either very passionate about the subject (you can check this by looking at open rates), or are simply deleting the email in large numbers, unread.

Unsubscribes can be as good a metric for judging interest as can opening rates and click thrus. Email metrics are about trends, and a sudden fall or rise in unsubscribe rates can tell you a lot about the impact of the content of that particular email.

So don't take unsubscribes personally - they can tell you a lot.

Like the Grand National

Spam filters are a funny breed of technology - given at how many levels they operate - ISP, email programme, desktop etc, they have become like fences in the Grand National - very hard to negotiate.

They also lack coverage or commentary - so it is difficult to know if you have fallen, and if so, when or where.

Each filter is different and, it seems, increasing zealous - presumably in a bid to become the market leader.

AntiSpam - stops 99.9% of all spam (and lots of legitimate emails as well)

A client, fed up with her subscriber only emails getting filtered on an ad hoc basis, recently tried an experiment - she included every spammer phrase she could find, and the results were astounding - the highest open rate ever!

Made me, and the advice I had been giving her, look pretty silly.

The point is that it is a lottery nowadays - and suggestions for industry standards will only make it easier for spammers - they will have a much more precise definition of what they have to combat.

The problem with 3rd party filters is that they are deciding for you - at Inbox we have a no filters policy, and if that means we spend 10 minutes a day clicking delete in reply to those kind people who want to award us $30 million or enhance or gooleys, then so be it.

At least we get all of our email.

Innovate or die!

The economic recession of 2009 has changed many things. It has had a pronounced effect on result driven email marketing - mainly downwards.

Shocked by the downturn, and the impact it had on their income and asset values, many consumers entered 2010 with a new set of values - based around the principle of economising.

Even in my house, we vowed to make 2010 the year of economise without compromise - which in layman's terms meant drinking good red wine only once a week instead of the previous every day approach.

Email marketers who had been doing very nicely with their weekly emails, found very quickly into the new year that sales generated by emails were down, thus disproving the old adage "if you do what you did, you'll get what you got"

Consumer spending patters and motivations are simply not the same as they used to be, and any retailer who ignores this and just hopes for a return to the old ways will be found out.

To adapt your retail strategy to meet the new market, and to try and boost demand for your offerings, there is a need to innovate in the way you sell them.

Of all retail channels, email is surely the best suited to this - the ease, and low cost of changing your emails, the volume and way in which content is presented etc is great. Compare it to a store refit, even a website redesign.

Email also allows much smarter and more personalised marketing - use these capabilities to the full. Segment your database, and don't be afraid to try different approaches for different segments. It costs nothing, it produces quantifiable and instantaneous results - results you can learn from and amend your future outreach accordingly.

A client and I had a reasonably strong difference of opinion recently over a subject line for an immediate call to action email - I suggested we split her database down the middle and see whose line got the better opening rate.

As it happens, she did - 39% to 35%. The point is, we knew instantly - not so much about the respective merits of our creativity, but in fact more about what sort of subject line motivated her database to open their emails.

So for 2010, for retail email marketers, if you do what you did, you'll get less than you got.

Innovate - don't be afraid - and with email you have the perfect medium.

What will 2010 mean for email?

It's a tough question, especially because in many ways, email has dropped off the radar as a hot topic - especially in New Zealand.

Has email become boring? Has it been so overshadowed by the current obsession with desperately trying to find some justification for social media sites as valid marketing tools?

There are two reasons why a medium of communication might be topical - technological development, and development of impact.

Email is a relatively complete medium - highly functional, yet simple. But it's technological advancement will depend upon advancements in supporting platforms, hardware and transmission capabilities. As such, email is probably on of the most mature web based concepts available.

So for email to become big news in 2010, it is going to have to make an impact - by increasing ROI for email marketers.

Which brings our wheel full circle - again. Email, like any tool, is only as good as the hands it is in.

We can all send emails, we can all operate DIY bulk email programmes, but unless email marketers finally get their heads around the fact that email is a unique medium requiring unique knowledge, experience and expertise to operate successfully, then the only place email is going in 2010 is backwards.

And that would be a shame.

Words that get your email junked

I read a story today about email which, if weren’t so grotesque, would be funny.

That government department which deals with youth problems will reject all emails sent to it which contain the word teen.

An overzealous (or moronic) webmaster has decided that the potential pornographic connotations of the word teen outweigh the importance of communicating about teens – with a government department who’s responsibility they are.

A client recently sent an email to it’s database which turned up a very high error rate – after exhaustive investigation we determined the word breast had caused the problem – even though Bayesian filter authors will tell you that context affects such decision – our client sells meat, and the breasts in question were chicken ones, and so YahooXtra bounced the lot.

It all stems, of course, from our obsession with diminishing spam volumes. The manner in which this manifests itself in the above examples is endemic of the way our society deals with all problems and consequent legislation nowadays – punish all to mitigate the behaviour of the few.

And it’s rubbish.

The threat of social media?

Many wise heads have suggested the social media revolution spells the end for email.
I beg to differ.

First it was Friends Reunited, then MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and most lately, Twitter. New, exciting ways to communicate. Only Facebook and Twitter still cut any ice, and I believe Twitter to be no more than a fad. Watch it die death as mainstream media as celebs desert it en masse.
Facebook may survive, but already its pages are littered with the remains of casual, lapsed users. Try searching for a name, and see how many dormant entries there are.

These are not media - they are applications, whereas email is a unique medium. Applications will come and go. Some will morph into survival, some will die through user inertia, or stark lack of revenue.

But email has already taken it's place amongst the bedrock media on which our lives are based, and will endure. As a communications tool, as a marketing device. Email works, and does not depend upon being commercialised to survive.

Clever marketers will integrate social media into their campaigns, but email will need to be, must be a fundamental component of these for the campaigns to succeed.

Email is, after the telephone, our best chance to talk directly, personally and individually to people. It is already many people preferred method of communication. It allows response, rather than reaction.

It has so many benefits, and it will be here long after Facebook, Twitter et al have been consigned to the publishing graveyard in the nether regions of the world wide web.

Spam? What spam?

Heard about Spam recently? It seems to have dropped off the radar completely – as a news item anyway. I still get around 30-40 junk mails everyday. But at least I know they are illegally sent. What a comfort.

I also still get several faxes and phone calls on a daily basis – all unsolicited, all unwelcome and all far more intrusive. But they are legal. They are also from reputable organisations – banks and such, all with outstanding, must have offers which just don’t seem that appealing when you are trying to get the children to bed.

So is that it for spam? Have we just accepted it? Have people realised that pressing delete 30 times a day is actually not that hard? Could it even be that as the first internet generation ages, emails about the little blue pill are not quite so unacceptable?

Time marches on, email is old hat, Facebook, Twitter et al get all the headlines now. And people deal with spam – as they always should have. That’s what will defeat it in the end. Hitting the delete button.

In to win?

Smart companies are constantly looking to increase their databases. You have to, just to compete with organic database fatigue and wastage. These factors reduce most lists by around 7% per year.

Any database growth will, by the very nature of its initiative, lead to a higher wastage level initially - usually because joining the database is incentivised - a good portion of those who sign up for your incentive do so because they want to win the prize - not because they want your newsletter.

But it is still a valid way of increasing database numbers.

However, and it is a big however, I recently spotted a flaw in this - I investigated further and found that at least 50% of email based competitions which were aimed at database growth contained this flaw.

The email in question offered a great prize, and I signed up immediately. But the only contact detail it requested was my email address. Three weeks later, I was routinely clearing my junk folder of the 700 odd emails offering me the way to sexual nirvana, when I happened upon one saying I had won the prize being offered.

I immediately rang the organisers only to be told that I was too late, and the prize had been given to someone else. I explained that their email (Subject line YOU ARE A BIG WINNER) had been filtered. Why hadn't they called me, I asked? They didn't have my phone number, they replied - because they had not asked for it.

And there lies the flaw. Any email making noise about being a winner in the subject line (especially all in caps) is likely to be considered spam and get junked. If, however, the subject line looks mundane, then it may not get read - especially if the sender is not on your "must read emails from" list.

So get a phone number as well - if you are running a competition, and all people need to do is enter, then it is your responsibility to ensure winners are properly notified - and become good members of your email database.