MindComet

Refer-A-Friend Programs Are A Goldmine For Some Online Retailers

Think of the old “Send-To-A-Friend” email marketing programs:  You’re sent a link from an obscure source.  It’s uninteresting and totally random.  Refer-A-Friend (RAF) programs revamp that by introducing the retailer to the recipient.  The dynamic of the message shifts from an all-text email with a lousy link, to an informative, visually-appealing and trustworthy referral.  This works well for online retailers (e-tailers) of high-end products. 

TigerDirect.com, an e-tailer of electronics, believes that opt-ins are good, but double opt-ins are better.  So their spiced up RAF program have double the kick:  Emails that drive traffic to the site, but also encourage friends to subscribe to the newsletter.  The referrer gives the friend a subscription, and all the friend has to do is confirm they want it.  According to an August 2006 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study, TigerDirect was only one of two major e-tailers that used a double opt-in method.

Another effective RAF program is Blue Nile’s incentive-driven newsletter subscription.  With links to products, gifts, shopping guides and return policies, the newsletters entice one to shop from their fine jewelry collections, and to refer friends to do the same.  Friends get a personal code that grants them a generous discount of up to $100.00.  And if the friend uses their code, the referrer gets one, too. 

Well-designed Refer-A-Friend programs are viral and can generate tremendous word-of-mouth.  They start client-service relationships on the right foot; with personal communication in ways readers can appreciate.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 19, 2007

How Copywriting Can Improve Your Click-Throughs

Besides a solid subject line, one of the most important aspects to any email campaign is compelling copy.  If you’re responsible for your email campaign’s copy and don’t have a copywriter on staff, I suggest investing in one… ASAP.  If you can’t afford one, here are a few suggestions on improving your otherwise less-than-engaging copy.

First and foremost, know who your audience is.  If your taking advantage of segmented lists (and you SHOULD), write specific copy based on the respective lists’ demographic, interests, etc.

Use strong words such as “will” and “can”.  Keep this in mind: “Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative”; negative being “may”, “hope”, “but”, “could”, etc.

Differentiate yourself from your competitors.  Expose your strengths and explain why your product is better suited for those on your lists, rather than the product down the street.  Try to be as unique as you possibly can be.  You’ll stand out among the rest.  Your click-throughs will prove it.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 18, 2007

Measuring Success: Beyond Open Rates

Our post last Thursday discussed Open Rates and why it may not be the metric to focus on.  So, what should you be tracking to measure overall success for your email marketing campaign?  The Marketing Sherpa 2007 Email Benchmark Guide has some suggestions:

• Click to Open Ratio

This number is the click rate divided by the open rate.  Because only the opened messages are used in this formula, it helps to determine what content those who open the message find valuable. 

• Click Times Conversion

This is determined by click-throughs times the conversion rate.  Removing the open rate from this equation allows you to see how your email marketing campaign performed with those who clicked.

• Leads Per Email

If your concentration is lead generation this metric will provide you a simple comparison of offers and lists by taking the number of leads received divided by the number if emails delivered.  How many forward to a friend or refer a friend messages are resulting in opt-ins? 

• Engagement Per Campaign

This determines the non-financial impact of your marketing message.  How many engaging activities have your subscribers participated in?  How many have entered your contest, changed their profile, or commented to a message board?  By engaging your subscribers you are continuing to get face time for your brand.

If your messages have a retail or ecommerce focus, there are some additional metrics you should also be reviewing for success.

• Revenue Per Email

You can determine this by taking the total revenue generated by your email marketing campaign divided by emails sent.  This provides value by comparing the value achieved by different messages or offers by comparing the revenue attached to the individual campaigns.  This metric also helps assess the financial impact of meager deliverability.

• Order Size Per Email

This is the total number of orders divided by the number of emails delivered.  This is an excellent way to compare messaging.  Was there a particular element in one message that equated to more orders?  This measurement also allows for segmentation based on order size for future campaigns.

Your email campaign contains more information than just open rates.  By tracking the additional metrics mentioned above you can better understand the behavior or your subscribers and use this information to send messages with more relevance in the future.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 17, 2007

Why does Microsoft hate us so?

Ok, well “hate” might be pushing it, but here we are 16 days into the New Year and already email marketers are disappointed with the way 2007 is shaping up.  It was reported last week at Campaign Monitor that Microsoft’s updated release of Outlook will be ditching IE’s HTML rendering engine and replacing it with Word’s less-than-stellar rendering engine.  So what does this actually mean?  In short it means that the Outlook of the not-too-distant-future will be extremely limited.  Here are a few features that it does not support:

o No support for background images (HTML & CSS)
o No support for forms
o No support for flash
o No support for CSS floats
o No support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
o No support for CSS positioning
o No support for animated GIFs

Here’s an example of how a standard HTML email renders using Outlook 2003:

Now here’s the same email using Outlook ‘07’s implementation of Microsoft Word’s HTML engine:

Since Outlook is the most widely used client among businesses (79.6%) and one of the leading clients for consumers (15% for consumers – third to AOL and Yahoo!), both the creative individuals and email marketers need to re-evaluate their coding standards in order for their emails to comply with Outlook 2007’s lackluster capabilities. 

You would think with as powerful and influential a company like Microsoft is, they would be raising the bar higher.  But unfortunately, they’ve taken 10 steps backward.  They’ve completely dropped the ball and have lowered their standards to match those of their competing clients such as Lotus and Eudora.

For additional information on Outlook 2007’s rendering capabilities go here and here.

Way to go Microsoft.  Way. To. Go.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 16, 2007

Email: The Most Popular Form Of Online Marketing Today

In a newly released study by Alterian, 540 marketers in North America and Europe were surveyed about their budgets for online direct marketing.

Eighty-five percent of those survyed expect that their online direct marketing budgets will increase in 2007.  Sixty-nine percent were planning, in particular, to increase email spending. Sixty-nine percent!

According to the study “Email marketing has quickly become the most popular form of online marketing today.”

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 12, 2007

Your Open Rate May Not Be As Important As You Think

According to the Marketing Sherpa 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide, analysts and email experts are moving away from open rates as a success measure and using it instead as benchmark to determine the success of subject lines. 

But why the shift?

Preview panes allow for opens to register, even if the recipient never actually looks at the message.  Simply by tabbing past it, even briefly and the images load, an open is recorded.  There is no connection to the interaction of the recipient with the message.

On the flip side, blocked images can also skew the results. Images in new the version of Hotmail, a.k.a Windows LiveMail, AOL, Outlook 2003 and Yahoo! Email beta are blocked by default.  This means that the tiny transparent image that allows opens to be registered does not get activated. 

Because open rates are generally based on delivered email messages filtering has proved to have a negative effect on open rates.  While it may appear that the message has been delivered it may actually have been stopped before it ever got the recipient’s inbox. 

While the open rate reported by your ESP may be inaccurate, it still provides worth as a week-to-week or month-to-month determination of interest level in a given email.  Marketing Sherpa is reporting that for the first time, a drop in the number of marketers tracking email open rates.

So what should marketers use to measure success?  We’ll give you the answer in an upcoming post.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 11, 2007

Random Points of Interest and Such :: Vol. 1

Since being in the email trenches here at MindComet, a few things have come to my attention about various email marketing practices.  These are just a few I’ve highlighted—which I hope will become a recurring topic trend for emailmarketingvoodoo.com.

Get to the point, would ya?
Mention in the subject line the most important link within the body of the email.  If you’re trying to push your recipients to watch a certain video, include a brief description of the video link in the subject line.

Sharing is Caring
Only use a forward-to-a-friend or refer-a-friend button when necessary.  It doesn’t have to stay just in the header or footer of the email, either.  Let it breathe!  Include a link in the body of the email as well.  And be creative with your copy!  For example “refer-a-friend” may not be suitable in a B-to-B email.

Sleight of Hand
Pay close attention to who opens your email and who doesn’t.  Compile a list of each person on your list who didn’t open the original send.  Change the subject line the second time around and send it again.  This will prove to be a significant tactic to counteract initially low open rates.

Who Doesn’t Love Postcards?
Inboxes… that’s who.  If you’re sending out graphic-heavy emails—such as a post-card style emails—make sure the entire image is not a link. Filters will catch this and mark it as spam, never to be received and therefore never to be opened by your recipients.

Break the Mold
Keep your audience on their toes!  If you’re sending out a weekly or bi-weekly email, try to overhaul your email’s design and layout once every year.  It will regain interest from a potentially complacent audience, which will in turn lead to a more consistent click-through rate and a higher R.O.I.

Monkey See - Monkey Do
Most email campaigns are intended to drive traffic to a website.  So with that being said, wouldn’t it make sense if the email’s navigation reflected the navigation of the website you’re trying to promote?

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 10, 2007