MindComet

Passing it Along

Viral campaigns are all the buzz.  However, before your start sending out messages with the intention of being forwarded to friends, consider the following:

Message Clearly:

This goes without saying for any email marketing message, but it is especially important if you want your message passed along.  Complex messages make it difficult for people to understand.  A delay in the decision-making process may prevent someone from acting on your message or even forwarding it to their friends.

Make a Suggestion:

Too often email marketers set up viral campaigns and fail to ask recipients of the message to share it.  Let them know you want them to send it to their friends.  Include a link or other tools such as the ability to send to their IM list. Be sure you are making every effort to enable your viral marketing campaign.

Analyze Results:

Your viral campaign is alive and it will either continue to grow or it will begin to crumble.  If it is growing, pay special attention to make sure it continues to move smoothly.  If issues arise, by staying on top of it, you can work to quickly identify and solve the problem.

Thinking through the small details of your viral email marketing campaign, will help you achieve the desired results.

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Posted by MindComet on Aug. 28, 2006

Will Spam Complaints be Reduced?

The Call is coming from email marketers for changes to the major ISP email interfaces, especially Yahoo! and AOL. With the addition of the unsubscribe button to Microsoft’s Windows Live Email Interface, the new free e-mail service replacing Hotmail, marketers would like a level playing field with the other ISPs.

Microsoft is the first email box provider to answer email marketers’ calls in the beginning of August 2006 by including an unsubscribe button in its interface so consumers will be less likely to mistakenly report permission-based commercial e-mail as spam. Microsoft’s unsubscribe link started appearing two weeks ago, replacing the report-and-delete button on some e-mails in Windows Live.

Consumers frequently use the Spam reporting buttons rather than unsubscribe to prevent mailers’ messages from arriving even though they agreed to receive the messaging. In a recent survey, nearly 79% of consumers admitted that they have hit the “spam” or “junk” e-mail button to get rid of e-mail they don’t want. Nearly 37% do it as a way to unsubscribe from things they had asked to receive. Every complaint counts as a black mark against the sender. Numerous complaints can result in ISPs blocking email from a sender. The new Windows Live unsubscribe button will not register as a spam complaint, according to Microsoft.

As long as email arriving at Microsoft with a valid list-unsubscribe function - a line of code that allows ISPs to automatically forward unsubscribe requests back to the sender - and the sender passes Microsoft’s internal “reputation” test determining the sender is not a spammer, the unsubscribe button will appear.

Without the valid list-unsubscribe information in the header, emails will receive the Spam complaint button.

The product is currently in beta and could change.

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Posted by MindComet on Aug. 14, 2006

It Never Hurts to Ask

Your website has a great viral component that is currently spreading like wildfire.  Congratulations.  You have managed to generate a lot of buzz and drive some traffic to your site.

As a best practice, you should be asking for an email address from the sender, but are you asking if they are interested in receiving future communications from your company?  The sender has made it to your site and thinks your viral component is worthy enough to forward.  They might also be interested in what else you have to say, whether it is promotions, sales or general information. Include a box to be checked for those attracted and follow up with a Double Opt-In Message. Even if you don’t currently have an email marketing campaign underway, you may (you should!) in the future.

Additionally, as a part of the forwarded message, ask the receiving friend if they are also interested in receiving information from your company.  It never hurts to ask and you will be building a sizable database of interested subscribers.

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Posted by MindComet on Aug. 08, 2006

E-mail is Calling for Rejuvenation!

E-mail marketing is nothing new, but what is new is the idea of e-mails in the future. What will become of our beloved, instant communication tool? 

In http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=46193”>“The Future of Email” David Baker, VP of E-mail Marketing at Agency.com, feels that the important thing is not email itself, but the ability to communicate a synchronized message in the mixed media world. He feels the future is bright with opportunities and ideas of how to carry this medium to the next level. If we had the ability to customize every email, to make our communication more personal again and add character, we would be transforming email. He claims the important part of each medium is not what it is, but what it does for individuals, companies and our society. It all comes down to communication in our fast paced, technology driven world. As he puts it “users are becoming creatures of their communication devices and are already molding their communications patterns to mixed media.” We have become dependent on these abilities and we rely on them to communicate.

Baker feels in order to grow E-mail marketing, we need to expand on our idea of email in general. It doesn’t have to be the single channel that it is today. Email is calling for rejuvenation.

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Posted by MindComet on Jul. 31, 2006

Enquiring Minds Want to Know

Surveying your list can be an easy and inexpensive way to learn about your subscriber list.  While surveying loses its effectiveness if it is done too frequently, if you are not already conducting surveys, plan on surveying your list two – four times a year.

You can gain a great deal of insight and target your messages accordingly when you survey. Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when you prepare your survey.

Ask specific questions.  The more targeted your question is, the more targeted the answer will be.  This allows you to better plan your campaign or event.

Use your survey to learn more about your subscribers.  By asking questions about geographic location, company size and concerns related to their industry, you will be better equipped to target your subscribers with the relevant information they are looking for.

Use your survey to find out who is still interested.  If you have subscribers that have stopped responding to your messages, send a short survey with an incentive for completion.  If there is still no response, there is a good possibility they are truly no longer interested and it may be time to say goodbye.

There are some overall survey best practices to consider, these include the following:

Let your survey-takers know to expect.  Tell them how many questions there are or how long it should take to complete.  Also, let them know there is a specific incentive waiting for them at the end. 

Make the incentive you offer specific and relevant for your business.  Offering an incentive that would be appreciated by your audience will provide better survey results than offering an incentive that will have serial survey takers crawling out of the woodwork.

Keep your survey to the point.  While you have your subscribers’ attention it can be tempting to ask the world, but by maintaining your focus you will get better results and minimize the risk of people dropping off half way through the survey process.

Make sure your questions make sense.  Consider having someone else read the question to verify clarity.

Instead of asking your subscribers open-ended questions about the type of information they would like to receive consider instead a way for the survey participants to rank industry issues that are important to them.  This will allow you to see the most important areas to focus your upcoming email communication.

If your email service provider does not include an integrated survey tool consider using a link to an external survey site.  The robust reporting tools provided are extraordinary and will give you the details you are looking for.

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Posted by MindComet on Jul. 25, 2006

Make the Most of Internal Communication

When you make the decision to start an internal email communication campaign for your company there are some email guidelines to think about before you click the send button.

• Subject Lines - The subject line should pertain to the email and be compelling enough to encourage the reader to open it. The subject line should not be too long, in all caps, or contain any exclamation marks or $ signs.

• From Lines – From lines should clearly identify where the email is coming from. It can be from a group ie: XYZ News - or an individual ie: John Smith - . Remember that all undeliverable messages due to full mailboxes and out of office replies will go to the email address provided.

• Creative – The layout of your message should flow easily. Images should be clickable. Consider a brief synopsis of each article or story with a “read more” link that would direct readers to landing pages. This allows tracking by page clicks the articles that are most important to your employees.

• Opt-Out Method – While a business to business or business to consumer communication requires an email address or another Internet-based response mechanism, such as an opt-out link, to clearly be provided in order to allow a recipient to request that you do not send any future email messages to that address. This is not required in an internal communication. Consider instead a confirmation to your employees how important they are such as: At XYZ Company, we want every team member to receive the latest information about our company. Therefore, we do not provide an option to unsubscribe.

• Sending Frequency – You should be consistent in the frequency in which you send your emails. You should determine a schedule and stick to it, whether it is once a day, once a week, or once a month. The more consistent you are in your mailings, the more familiar your team will become with receiving them.

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Posted by MindComet on Jul. 18, 2006

Message with Meaning

One of the goals of your email marketing campaign should be to engage your subscriber and make them feel like the message was written just for them. By integrating web analytics into your messages, you have the ability to message with meaning.

According to JupiterResearch 41 percent of email marketers are making plans to use clickstream behavior data as an email targeting tactic. In the past the lack of resources and some difficulty integrating web analytics with email have been cited as the most common reasons why email marketers have not used clickstream data to target their campaigns.

There is the potential for considerable benefits of using clickstream behavior as a part of your overall email marketing strategy. A May 2005 study conducted by JupiterResearch showed that targeted emails that use clickstream data on average generate nine times the improvement in revenue and 32 times more in net profit over untargeted email blast campaigns.

As you start planning the web analytics integration, begin looking at customer behavior - as you understand their needs you will be able to market more effectively to them. Consider the following:

1. Who has abandoned you?

When one of your subscribers visits your site and fails to complete a process, weather it is abandoning a shopping cart, failure to complete registration or any other process that is left incomplete, you have an opportunity to reach out and re-engage your customer. Send a reminder encouraging them to return and complete the process.

2. Where have they been?

When you know someone is searching specifically for a product on your site, you are that much closer to a sale if you reach out to your subscriber with an e-mail message that includes additional product information, or discounts to related products or categories browsed.

3. When are they visiting?

When customers stop checking your site on a regular basis or, at the other end of the spectrum, do so more often, it may be time to change your messaging strategy. Consider the offering of rewards to devoted clients who visit often, and persuade those who haven’t stopped by in a while to come back for a visit.

4. Where have they been?

Depending on the implementation of your Web analytics, you may be able to tell what site an e-mail customer visited just before coming to yours. Were they looking at your competition? If so, be ready to respond with your most salient sales message. Customers who come to you from a partner’s site can be sent messages that support the value they receive from the affiliation.

5. Why do they do what they do?

By pushing the e-mail demographics such as age, gender, occupation, income and geographic data you already have into your Web analytics program, you can learn what product categories and what pages are currently appealing to your demographic segments rather than relying on past response and well-informed deductive reasoning.

In order for these tactics to work,  your e-mail and Web analytics programs must be able to seamlessly pass data between applications. At one time, companies were forced to coax together the relationship. Now, more e-mail service providers and Web analytics vendors are teaming up to make integrations an easier process so marketers can focus on campaign design and strategy. Because of this, the ability to develop highly-relevant e-mail messages integrating web site data has never been easier.

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Posted by MindComet on Jul. 10, 2006