MindComet

Leveraging Twitter for your Email Marketing Campaigns

returnonsubscriber.com recently posted a very interesting idea… Sending out your email campaigns via Twitter.  It’s quite simple, actually:

First, create an email address ( for example). Then make sure your email address is aliased with the new one you just created for Twitter. This is the “subscriber” that you will use to track your Twitter activity.

Secondly, sign up to your email campaigns. When you send out your next email, will receive it. Make sure there’s a “view in browser” link at the top of the email.

Once you receive the email, click on the “view in browser” link, copy the browser URL and shorten it (using tinyurl.com). 

Now, from your Twitter account, paste this tinyurl into a tweet and send it out!  (example: Company Newsletter for January ‘09 - New Blogs, Recent Launches: http://tinyurl.com/asdfa89).  As a rule of thumb, you should always incorporate the subject line of the email. With Twitter and their 140 character limit, you can get a little more descriptive than would with a subject line.

Next, log-in to your ESP and search for your “twitter@yourdomain.com” email address.  From here you should be able to view the statistics for the specific message you just sent to this account, including the stats from the tweet.

Although it won’t tell you which Twitter users clicked on your link, it will help extend the reach of your message.

I will be trying this with our newsletter, The Lowdown (see the column to the left to sign up) at the end of the month.  Stay tuned for the outcome of this little experiment!

If you use twitter, be sure to add mindcometgroup!

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 21, 2009

Lycos Mail Bites the Dust - UPDATE

Yesterday, we reported that Lycos email services were closing its doors.  This is true, but only for their European users.  Lycos Mail will still be in operation for it’s U.S. users.  See their explanation here.  If the vast majority of your users are based in Europe and use Lycos, still make sure to email them asking them to update their email preferences to a new address.

Sorry for the confusion!

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 21, 2009

Lycos Mail Bites the Dust

Through theemailwars.com, it’s been brought to my attention that Lycos Mail and its European counterpart, Jubii, are closing their doors come February 15th.  Here’s a statement on Jubii’s site:

Dear User,

This service will remain available only until 15 February 2009. After this date, all accounts will be closed, and any stored content and access authorizations related to your e-mail account will be deleted in accordance with legal requirements. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Jubii e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Your Jubii Mail Team

Lycos’ statement can be found below:

Dear User,

We regret to inform you that our parent company has decided to discontinue all unprofitable activities.

One of the activities that will be discontinued is our E-mail business division. For this reason, we are hereby terminating your account as of 15 February 2009. Currently, we are still working on finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider. If we should succeed to do so, we will inform you within the next 4 weeks. But as this is currently doubtful, we would like to ask you to assume the end of the service.

Prior to this date, you may continue to log in to your e-mail account and receive and send mail as usual. After this date, however, we will close your account and delete all content and access authorizations stored with Lycos in relation to your e-mail account, in accordance with legal requirements.

You will then no longer be able to receive or send e-mail under your e-mail address. The contents of your mailbox will also no longer be accessible. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Lycos e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

Should you still be entitled to services for any additional paid options, we will of course reimburse the balance to the bank account you provided.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Kind regards,

Your LYCOS Mail Team

If you have any Lycos or Jubii addresses that you’re currently sending to, be sure to send them a message to change their preferences to a new email addresses.  This will help retain the integrity of the addresses in your database and will help combat high bounce rates in the future.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 20, 2009

The Best Inauguration-Related Email So Far Today

Congratulations, Levi’s… Obama sports your brand, but only in the rain (see below).  The subject line / sale / call to action cleverly connects our 44th president with a 44% off sale. I personally think this sale and the supporting email is quite genius in its simplicity. If I receive anymore Inauguration-related emails today, I’ll be sure to blog about them here.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 20, 2009

BORDERS Email Marketing

I’m not one for bookstores.  I can never find what I need without consulting a sales associate.  I’d rather not interact with someone (there’s my agoraphobia kicking in again) and just do my book shopping online.  But when you need a gift—especially last minute gifts—there’s no better option than a book.  There are books written for every conceivable subject matter; no matter how obscure or random the topic is.

So a few weekends ago, I got some grub with my folks then headed to the mall to pick up a gift for a friend.  I meandered through the obese tourists and locals alike and found myself finally stopping into Borders.  Once I found a book for my friend, I proceeded to check out.  Upon checking out, I also signed up for their rewards program and email list.  Not 10 minutes later I got a welcome letter from them telling me the benefits of their rewards program. 

Since then, I’ve received numerous emails from them, keeping me engaged with relative and timely content going over discounts and sales in my area. The only critique I would make is for them to not include so much information in their emails!  I think you’re going a little overboard when your email looks like this:

It’s just a little too cluttered for my tastes.  Don’t you think it’s a little much?

So low and behold I’ve returned to Borders THREE TIMES since my initial purchase.  Touché, Borders.  I think you’re single handedly curing my agoraphobia.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 13, 2009

Sirius Subscriber Reactivation Plan

I decided to cancel my Sirius Satellite Radio subscription.  I was a subscriber for about three years and enjoyed the service however as of late, my Sirius radio device (not built into my car) began acting up with a lot of static.  Although this was completely related to the device itself since it was not hard wired to my car, I began to get annoyed and decided to cancel my subscription.  That wasn’t the only deciding factor as my commute to and from work is roughly 50 minutes, 25 minutes each way and didn’t really see the added value outside of the commercial free listening.  Other than driving to and from work, my commutes typically do not rely on me being in my car for more than half an hour and while traveling I am usually on the phone or listening to my ipod so ending the relationship with Sirius wasn’t all that difficult to make. 

I called into Sirius and canceled my subscription even after they tried to get me to stay with two or three different offers.  I was later sent a follow up survey to share my experience which I participated in, giving them good ratings as I truly do enjoy their service, especially now after being in the car with commercial after commercial on the radio but that’s besides my point. 

Since my cancellation, I have received two reactivation emails (about two weeks apart) which I have to give props to Sirius for being on the ball and trying to reactivate their customers.  The reactivation emails had the same call to action but different creative and subject lines.  In addition to what Sirius is already doing, I feel they can go one or two steps further with the following variables to try to reactivate their subscribers:

• Different offers/calls to action
• Time sensitive offers (sign back up today and get….)
• Personalization (after being a subscriber for 3 years listening in my car and while at work, shouldn’t they know what stations (web streaming requires login) I listened to and target me that way?
• The ability to re-sign up via the web or start the reactivation process there (currently only able to call in)
• Click through calls to action on the emails so Sirius can track what I may be interested in in regards to my clicks with their next reactivation offer

All in all, Sirius has a good strategy in place in regards to immediately touching recent subscribers to try and get them to convert back to paying subscribers.  Unfortunately in my case, the offer doesn’t persuade me enough to go back even though I was a content subscriber.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 13, 2009

The Winter Holidays Are Over, On To The Next Holiday

As I faced my inbox today, I deleted a few remaining holiday emails that were no longer relevant and as I got to today’s emails, noticed my first Valentine’s Day communication from Orvis, a men and womens retail store catering to an outdoors lifestyle.  Although Valentine’s Day is just over a month away and there is still plenty of time to get Valentine’s Day focused communications out the door, I was impressed by Orvis’s preparedness.  The first day back after a two week holiday period and their email is in my inbox before 11 am. 

If you are looking for trends to follow this year in regards to email marketing, follow Orvis in theirs by dedicating the time to plan out your email communications so you can be ready to hit the send button without rushing to get just anything out the door.  There preparedness prompted me to click through where as if I received their communication two weeks before Valentine’s Day they may have been competing for my attention alongside other brands sending out their Valentine’s Day communications.

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 05, 2009