Email Yogi

Is Twitter (Becoming) the New Hyde Park

2009-11-10T00:00:00.001-05:00

If you walk through Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, London (UK) you hear a lot of opinions. There are a lot of people who stand out and openly express their opinion on any subject. These opinions are very audible and basically sound like a bunch of yelling. As long as you don't say something illegal and don't use profanity - you have free reign to share your opinion. I find this place really amusing as there are more people talking and very few listening, with only a small fraction paying attention to what is really being said! Sound familiar?

Twitter is turning into a launch pad of how a lot of people are planting tweets, re-tweeting, but rarely listening.

A quick survey of some good friends who Tweet. I asked them to share feedback on how they are using Twitter, and what their response from Twitter really is. Their opinion, people are polite and re-tweet what they are saying but there are no responses back on what is really being said. Fewer people are listening.

A look at a few business over time on Twitter. A tweet six months ago led to a large number of responses or feedback. Today, with 10 times more followers, each tweet elicits less than 5% responses compared to the past.

Lists in Twitter are going to create interesting challenges for the 'Tweeter' - you have to learn how to multi-task as you message different lists with different messages. A bigger challenge for people who are in small businesses or those who Tweet while they are doing other things.

Twitter is also like the Jim Carey movie, the Truman Show with one significant difference. Imagine hundreds if not thousands of shows running concurrently. This gives people a lot of things to look at, good choices no doubt, but again very few people focused on listening.

There are more applications that are being launched that allow people to reuse tweets, this allows business and individuals to reuse Tweets and repackage old information as they reach out to people. You need to go back to the basics and remember that Twitter brings together the power of now, merging both your computer and mobile. You have to go back to the fundamentals and create interactive conversations.

Hyde Park also has some great speakers. They have a following, they are engaging, & they respond to the questions thrown out to them.

To fix Twitter you have to focus on three things - you have to learn to listen so you can participate in conversations, you have to build trust so your followers will click through on what you provide them, & you need to communicate relevance else you are as irrelevant as the loud obnoxious ones in Hyde Park.

Email, Facebook, & Reviving Your List

2009-11-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

A multi-channel retailer offered everyone on their list an incentive to come shop – web, call center, or store. Buyers were given a discount, non-buyers were offered a little more. Even if you didn't buy, you could win something. You spun for free shipping or gift with purchase. If you didn't want anything you could even get a small gift if you paid for shipping & updated your preferences. There was also a grand prize winner. You had to tell them a little bit about yourself, and of course, all offers were e-mailed to you.

You were even given the option to share your incentive on Facebook. A 'free-shipping' turned into a 'free-shipping + gift' if you shared with your friends on Facebook. If one of your friends from Facebook were to purchase, they too were asked for information about their preferences.

The sequence of events that led to this were quite interesting. You got a direct mail piece at home or a phone call. They provided you with an access code with a timed incentive to respond. You went online – input your offer code & were e-mailed a confirmation link.

This confirmation link asked you to provide preferences – a few questions & a big thank you with a coupon you could redeem immediately. If you didn't open, click, or use the coupon you got a gentle reminder.

You were even encouraged to call their call center or visit one of their stores with your coupon. Their employees could help find you your perfect gift! Those who purchased items were encouraged to write about their purchases on the merchants Facebook page. If you posted it on Facebook, you were given another offer and the ability to share the offer with your friends.

Prior to doing this this merchant was averaging response rates of less than 5% open rates with a dismal click-through. They were also averaging three communiqués a week. With this coordinated cross channel blitz they reduced their offers to one a week and have enjoyed open rates of more than 25% with high conversion rates & even higher engagement.

The post purchase survey and subsequent messaging from the customer revealed that customers now felt like they were part of the club!

Your Webinar Changed My Life!

2009-11-06T01:53:00.001-05:00

This was the subject line of an email that I received from someone who attended an online workshop by Builder Radio. The rest of the email read as follows.

I sat and tried to think of a catchy subject line to prove I learned something yesterday…

Thought maybe an “ego builder” would prompt you to open but you don’t seem like you have a big ego. Plus the subject line has nothing to do with this email which is misleading and illegal. See! I did learn something.

Anyway-would you mind sending me the subject lines that work you offered to us yesterday? And is there any way you would share the electronic presentation as well? Let me know if you would. Thank you!

Have a terrific day!

Here are some additional ordinary statements that now pack some punch …

Trucks are the greatest luxury! I have TWO! And I love them both. We go places together.

On an email selling camping gear with the subject line, ‘How to pitch a tent…’

I have a big box in my garage that has everything I need to camp. I just throw it in my truck and go! Most important thing is toilet paper, flashlight, lighter (or fire starter logs work best) and tent. All the rest is gravy!

Come to think of it, chairs are nice too…and pots and pans, and silverware, plates, cups, sticks for hotdogs and marshmallows, pillows and blankets, towels –big and small, Ziploc bags of all sizes, batteries, radio, rope and bungee cords, trash bags, bug spray, soap, games-sorry, now I am telling you how I camp…

Just don’t show up to your site at night. Makes it much more difficult to pitch a tent.

Our dialogue continued and I realized that this copywriter at heart put so much punch into everything she wrote – it got me to read it.

With so much of our focus on deliverability, engaging subject lines, and call to action we tend to neglect something that gets people into reading more. To create dialogue you have to write well. Good copy sparks interesting conversation. Be it Twitter, Email, Facebook - you have to engage and capture attention quickly.

Our Service in Action call in November (11/20 - @ 2.00 pm EST) will focus on 'How to Stand Out in the In-Box.' We will introduce you to a roundtable of experts that will lead the discussion around best practices.

From Direct Mail to Email & Social - Mark's Story!

2009-11-05T06:31:00.003-05:00

Mark came from the world of direct marketing. He ran programs to engage consumers and businesses with all kinds of direct response materials. His principled approach to marketing provided him with a few very strong fundamentals. Advertise with a superb image, write awesome copy, & have multiple 'great' calls to action. The world of online has provided him an avenue to apply his direct marketing experience.

Online to him is direct marketing on steroids. You are able to see results in near real time as marketing campaigns can be launched with great speed. To leverage the effectiveness of the internet Mark feels that these are fundamentals for any marketer.

1. A welcome campaign, hopefully with an offer to engage, is sent as soon as possible after first contact with the potential customer. He prefers to automate this offer with an offer that is relevant. The channel of contact or initial engagement could be the company web site, an ad on Google, an offer in a magazine, or even content from social media channels.

2. If people want to get off your mailing list, he recommends an EASY to navigate Opt-Out process, but with an intermediate step to allow the user to ammend their profile. Perhaps to change their contact information, adjust their preferences, or even receive a reduced volume of communiquees.

3. Don't just plug in the name of the recipient. Check to see if the information flows correctly. Poor, incorrect, or inconsistent personalization sucks! Twitter is interesting, 140 words to get your message across - they couldn't have taught better lessons at Direct Marketing school.

Mark is passionate about racing - he enjoyed racing cars and loves riding bikes. The web offers him the opportunity to test out offers really fast. He loves email and continues to be thrilled by the opportunities presented through social media.

Mobile Media or 'Mocial': An Interview with Jacob!

2009-11-04T07:00:00.003-05:00

Jacob was one of the first users of an iPhone. He has always tried to do all of his work on a mobile device. He is big on blogs and social networks, and yes he pulls most of this up on his mobile device. To him the future of interactive marketing will be delivered on mobile devices - with social networks & user interest driving relevant content.

Here are some tips from him to make campaigns more engaging:

-Marketers should assume that their customers are checking emails on a wide variety of mobile devices, so start using mobile text versions and use header row offers that will display in the message preview on a mobile devise screen. Images in HTML should be reduced in file size so that a mobile device will not take as long to download the images, and a better ratio of text vs images should be worked for.

-A/B testing to learn how to shorten a subject line so that it will deliver the most impact in with the least amount of space. Short subject lines will also display well on mobile devices where real estate is very limited.

What Jacob doesn’t like:

-Blanket offers that do not apply to the email receiver; by getting more information at the subscribe page, offering a recepient to update preferences, and then using past purchase history, geographical location, past email history, and the wise use of surveys, a much more targeted offer can be presented that will encourage engagement, not unsubscribing.

What can Social Media do?

- Build a good blog that is updated frequently with valuable content, then add blog post snippets into the email to pull people to the website. Blogs are a softer sell and provide a rich source of content and interaction. Provide responses and feedback on the blog to build a community, and then tie the blog posting back to products offered on the website.

Perhaps the most important thing Jacob points out is for marketers to learn how to engage their customers on social media channels while they are on the move! Think about it, you are at a 'real' social event, and you are on a 'virtual' social event at the same time. Mobile social networking will facilitate two way communication based on your location.

That is where we are headed.

Engaging Your Customers: Interview with Ebony!

2009-11-03T00:00:00.005-05:00

Ebony is a make over Diva - looks, life, & branding. Make-me-over-Eb continues to transform the lives of many. She touches her clients through multiple WEB channels & continues to apply her creative focus to guide many businesses in their communication endeavors.

She wants you to engage the recipient in 'short-talk,' by continuously asking them questions. She thinks long surveys put people off and loose focus. She believes in really short opinion surveys - one to three questions. "It is important to use a promo code with the survey so you know what response can be attributed to a particular survey." Her style of writing copy is also engaging as she encourages you to 'aspire' and wants to help you get there. If deals are good, she wants to make it easy for you to share the deal or spread the word leveraging email & social media channels.

She hates mass email without proper segmentation. Worse than that is the lack of personalization. She feels that everyone takes time to provide their email id, the company that collects this information should have the obligation to personalize and treat you like an individual.

She LOVES how Blog Talk Radio engages its audience with weekly emails about updates to their tool for their subscribers. Blog Talk Radio also features links to articles in their blog that highlight various podcast programs they host. They also send screen shots of the new features, and links to information on their website about the new features. Her key message here is that Blog Talk Radio wants to make sure that their 'guest,' you feel welcome and never lost. She encourages marketers to use social media channels to improve their personal & brand leverage.

In a world with social media 'experts,' Ebony is one of the few originals who actually uses Social Media to create interactive conversations with those she serves.

Check out her radio program at Blog Talk Radio, it is a great source of learning.

13 Ideas to Reengage Your Customers & Prospects!

2009-11-02T00:00:00.005-05:00

It’s inevitable, at some point you’ll lose contact with some of your customers and prospects… but don’t worry, there are a number of ways to reengaging them, here are a few simple yet effective ideas:

1) Send a simple email with the subject line – Do you read your email? or Do you read your catalog?

2) Offer more control over the type of emails they receive and the frequency of the messages; if the consumer can control this interaction, then they are more likely to participate.

3) Send a We miss you! email with an offer (better yet, try a split test without the offer.) This will hopefully capture their attention and give you the opportunity to target more effectively.

4) Go back and look at the links they clicked in the past and then target them with similar offers.

5) Keep the focus on the transactional, send an email at the conclusion of the transaction. If they have purchased, ask why; if they haven’t purchased try to find out why not... the goal is to keep them engaged.

6) Check their activity across other channels, see what they are doing, remind them about your program and see what you can do to get their attention using alternate mediums.

7) Integrate multiple channels, send a print piece that offers part of the story/ offer and references the remainder on the landing page. This is a great way to grab the customer’s attention and test the validity of your data.

8) Ask your people, your frontline folks are your lifeline to your customer base. Ask them what customers and prospects are saying about your email campaigns and leverage their feedback into the process.

9) Let them truly be the first to know; if you promise a good deal via email, make it come true.

10) Be sincere, tell them about the benefit of your email program, stress the environment, your ability to serve them better and your savings – stress how you can translate these savings into a benefit for them.

11) Solicit customer & prospect feedback - ask them about your campaigns, your products, your services. Make this information available over the web for others to evaluate and comment on.

12) Open up your social media channels, and do listen to what people are talking about on those channels.

13) Humanize your campaigns - let your customers reach out to your organization if they need to. An email help desk helps answer questions, analyze results of campaigns, & provides real time feedback for improvement of your campaigns!

You could pay a research firm thousands to get free and relevant advice from those you serve!!

How to connect? An interview with Mark, Ebony, & Mike!

2009-10-30T00:00:00.004-04:00

I spoke to three engaging marketers on how they would connect with their customers. Mark was fondly called the direct mail king, Ebony is a social media diva, & most of us want to be like Mike.

Mark wants to start off right. You sign up for email, & he wants to make sure you get his first email right away. He offers personalization through surveys that are delivered via email. So in each communiqué he asks you a little bit at a time, building up rapport with you.

Ebony wants to chat with you, (all the time). She wants to know you better & get to know your friends. So she thrives on small talk and nice cute offers that you can forward on to your friends. Ebony has a show on BlogTalk Radio and encourages email marketers to engage their clients over live audio channels.

Mike wanted you to personalize without being creepy. His philosophy is to drive people towards providing their preferences and leveraging that information into the marketing mix. He doesn't want to use 'click' data to personalize as he feels that the consumer really hasn't offered that. Mike is able to overcome this by continuously asking for feedback. His one advice, don't treat your list like a bunch of numbers, there is a person behind each name.

Getting your recipients engaged is vital, else you are wasting time. The one advice that all three gave was to try and humanize your interactions. Do join them and other star marketers in our discussion later this afternoon on how to grab recipient mindshare.

Service in Action: Recipient Mindshare
Friday, October 30 2:00 ET/ 1:00 CT

Need the dial-in and webinar? Send us an email!

How to grab your recipients mindshare?

2009-10-29T00:00:00.007-04:00

Your consumers are constantly on the go, checking messages anytime, anywhere… factors that could limit your opportunity to truly reach the recipient. Relevance is key to connection, offering valuable information and customized offers will earn top-of-mind status and reduce some of the age-old questions of when to send and how often to mail.

People pay attention to email messages for a few reasons - they are looking for information from you, you find them at the right time, they trust you, & or your message is relevant to their interests. You have to leverage relevancy to make a connection! A little luck, and a little more than being at the right place at the right time.

We will be hosting a group of really smart marketers in a dialogue around best practices. Join the discussion, we will focus at some key ways to increase the relevancy of your campaigns. We have been hosting this call once a month since February 1997 - the best interaction amongst your peers!

Service in Action: Recipient Mindshare

Friday, October 30 2:00 ET/ 1:00 CT

Need the dial-in and webinar? Send us an email!

Five steps to leverage 'Cause' into your marketing mix

2009-10-28T00:00:00.002-04:00

Consumers pay attention to a 'cause.' With October being breast cancer awareness month we have been made aware of the cause and have been seeing a lot of effective marketing campaigns. People seem to pay more attention to a brand that is associated with a cause.

'Cause' marketing works effectively for consumables. It can help brand higher ticket items. Even on airlines, there is a concerted effort to think pink & sell pink .

Rather than the traditional feature, function, & benefit; it is now a focus on psychology, 'cause', & benefit to the 'cause.' The implication is that our product or service is good, here is a 'cause' that is very good, please use our product as well will 'contribute to the 'cause.'

Here are five ways to apply 'cause' marketing to your online marketing mix:

1. Design your branding to include the 'cause' standing out

2. Make the contribution clear - you are making them aware of the cause or that your company contributes to the cause

3. Highlight the impact that the consumer can make

4. Create one or a few campaigns to build 'cause' awareness, then make it a banner on your campaigns

5. Dedicate a landing page to carry forth your message.

Don't just do it to drive sales, be genuine and talk about your accomplishments.

Old Man Meets Social Media

2009-10-27T00:00:00.005-04:00

Okay, he is my grandfather & I can call him old.

'Nanaji' is 85 years old and to my chagrin has stopped subscribing to the newspaper. When we asked him why, he explained that he was tired of having to wait for the newspaper and even the 24 hour newschannel so he now has a schedule where he reads the news online thrice a day. Plus, he can always go online when he wants to. Additionally, he reads five different news magazines everyday. He loves joining discussion groups, not to share his opinion but to get peoples perspective on the news. He has stored our family pictures online, enjoys YouTube, & is constantly getting updates via the online world as to what the rest of his family is doing.

He is religious and worships his wife, God, & Google. Google, he says has taught him a lot about the web and he also loves his dialogue with Google. He leverages the search engine to find recipes, news, information on medicines, etc. He asks, Google answers! No waiting!

What he loves about an online article is that he doesn't have to find page B16 for the rest of the story. A simple click gets him there. He fills out his preferences and loves advertising that is targeted. He despises irrelevance and hates pop-ups.

All this from a man who would file and keep all the newspapers for months.

His quote on the value of social media - informational, entertaining, & giving him the ability to solve problems. A simple message for all of us, think about the value proposition. (If you have comments let him know, he will absolutely love them.)

A Tale of Two People

2009-10-26T00:00:00.003-04:00

I stayed at a very nice resort recently. My check-in experience was inspirational. The service in their lounge was impeccable. As I sat in the lobby they would always rush over to get me a drink or ask if I needed something. My plate in the restaurant would barely be empty when they would run up and offer me more. Of course, I was always searched like everyone else (security reasons) as I entered the property, sometimes a little too aggressively, most times with disdain or contempt. If I hung around the lobby I was always asked what I was doing there - once they knew who I was it always changed the way they treated me.

It was the best of service, it was the worst of service. It was almost like being two different people. The key challenge was getting them to recognize me, once they did it was fine.

Online gives us a great opportunity to recognize and reward the customer. You know their preferences and can anticipate their transactions. But what if you don't recognize them (they cleared their cache)? Shouldn't you anticipate such situations? You should always come up with unique back-up offers or ways to guide the customer into your site, so you could recognize who they are. You can do this by making sure that messages are refreshed (not a few months old) and that they make sense - that they are relevant to the customers transactional path.

Three simple things to consider - first put forth a sign on your site that says - 'tell us who you are so we can serve you better.' Second, do offer something of value to the 'identified consumer.' Third - be genuine about treating them better - genuine service goes a long way.

Three Important Facets of Twitter

2009-10-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here are three useful articles on how to leverage twitter to enhance your communcation strategy.

First, keep in mind that you need to consider the three personalities for twitter - the concept of a master, the proponents, and customer service. Done right, each personality actually supports the other driving interaction amongst themselves and if done correctly engages followers effectively.

http://www.emailyogi.com/2009/05/twitter-twitter-everywhere.html

Email & Twitter are an effective combination. There are a few who have excelled and it is still a great way to keep communication channels open. Again, the engagement is through relevant content tweeted in a timely fashion.

http://www.emailyogi.com/2009/03/email-twitter.html

The greatest power of Twitter (in my humble opinion) is the ability to facilitate real time updates across two channels - web & mobile. As a reminder, I actually turned off the news (yes CNN included) and was following events on Twitter. What was covered in Mumbai was amazing - to me it really showed the potential Twitter brings to the table.

http://www.emailyogi.com/2008/11/power-of-twitter.html

I am sure the channel will continue to evolve and we will continue to find connections both into our real & virtual world. Would love to hear your thoughts - do tweet to EmailYogi.

Avoiding Fraud: How not to get Kabooshed!

2009-10-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

Simply said, Kabooshed is something I coined a while back to talk about systematic fraud. This is how it works –

Things start with a value exchange – you sign up for email from a company because they are giving you something
The first two to three transactions are all about service and building up trust
Then as you transact, there is a strong bonding program where you are receiving transactional messages
You soon start getting partner offers – this is affiliate marketing at its best
You may even get an elaborate survey with feedback – they learn more about you and get you to trust them even more
You can start having cross channel conversations, a postcard could drive an email message
Then you get hit – first a little skimming, before your card / account gets taken to the cleaners.

If you look at everything listed above – those are perfect steps taken by any good email marketer. This is really the mantra to engagement. So what can an email marketer do differently.

Here are three suggestions –

First, emphasize the security factor – remind your customers who you are and what your company stands for. Tell them what you send and what information you ask for. Make sure your email is indeed secure.

Second, train your front line and your sites about fraud and how to respond to it.

Third, create a strong bond with your customers – ‘a first responders club’ so they can quickly make you aware of offers that might not be yours.

Those scam emails keep getting better and better – but this is your channel and you have to take the lead to control it.

Go Fetch! How to find out more so you can serve them better!

2009-10-21T00:29:00.002-04:00

My good friend Jeff Greene spoke to a group of financial institutions earlier this week about thinking and acting differently to boost their businesses. Here are some of the things he highlighted that I think we can apply to our own businesses.

Jeff's methodology to engage the consumer in a dialogue was to take ownership of prefered information gateways (the channels the consumer wants to use) and to cultivate trust. Trust isn't just about the security of the transaction or even your institution. Trust is also about making sure that you are listening on each of the channels you use to communicate. His whole notion is about empowering reverse exchanges - where the consumer was in control of both the information they provide and the channel they used to communicate with you.

Here were some other points of interest -

Most FI's work very hard to take care of 1:1 interactions with the 12% of people that visit their branches. (Look at the opportunity that exists on how you can communicate with the others!)

Eliminate anxiety by removing asterics or as Jeff called them 'Yikes' buttons.

Investors will not trust Avatars, leverage the information to have real people contact the consumer.

38% of consumers don't trust their financial institution, so if you don't follow up quickly it looks worse.

Discover people's passions - ask them about what they aspire to be and leverage that information into your dialogue with them. Ask people about issues with a purpose, i.e. lead them so you know how to serve them better. Most people tell you exactly what they are looking for, now all you have to do is to serve them.

How to Accelerate Insight

2009-10-20T04:00:00.000-04:00

Organizations from across the globe have descended in DC to engage in an active conversation on how to Accelerate Insight. Teradata Partners is an annual event that brings together people in a discussion around data and how best to leverage it into actionable information. Some of the more interesting workshops this year that appealed to me are as follows:

Using consumers as the information point, this focus by John McKean is about how one can leverage information within our organizations to talk to the knowledge empowered consumer. It is not like the consumer is looking for information - they already know, they are now there to evaluate you. His session offers practical ideas on how you can rethink making offers to the empowered consumer.

Suresh Vittal from Forrester talks about looking at your customer across multiple channels rather than looking at data in different silos. Now granted this increases the amount of data that you have at your fingertips, but what if you were to focus quickly on recency? A good friend of mine owns a restaurant and he always remembers the last dish you ordered. That recognition makes his customers feel awesome and they allow him to order for them. Suresh offers valuable insight about how to look at your results.

Then there is the session by Volvo. Did you know that 15000 Volvo cars send back data to servers each night? This data is then used to evaluate performance, and create predictive models about the future. Their goal is to be accident free in 2020. That is one smart car!

These sessions are only some of the many at this event that all strive to provide the organization with valuable information to use in their interactions with the consumer. As marketers, and with everything that we do with Social Media - we need to anticipate and be ready to create interactions with the empowered real time consumer. Email & Social Media can talk, but knowing what to talk about certainly helps.

You can follow my friends at Teradata on Twitter at PartnersUserGrp. Make the most of your data!!

Celebrating New Year (Already)

2009-10-19T07:17:00.004-04:00

Consumers & businesses are rejoicing the festive occasions of Diwali in India. Diwali, the festival of lights brings on the Hindu new year which is celebrated with prayer, sparkle, and festivity by over a billion people across the globe. Being in India a couple of weeks ago gave me an opportunity join in some of the preparation and participate in some of the festivities.
Here are some very interesting email campaigns.

A 103 year old financial institution was one of the first to wish its customers. They sent out an email greeting on the eve of Diwali. Customers were invited to any branch office to come join the bank for both prayer and celebration. A major retailer offered to take pictures of you in the apparel you tried and even offered you tasty delicacies in their stores. Airlines were quick to follow with messages at the speed of light - super deals if you book now.

A few banks focused on practicality by offering something very creative. They actually encouraged their customers to print out the email and bring it in to purchase gold bars! Yes, authentic gold bars as they are considered to be a better investment than jewelry, gifts, or even holding on to cash. Imagine the ROI on your email campaign - one email leading to the sale of a few gold bars!!

More people sent greeting cards through email and mobile messages than ever before. The power of digital has been tremendous. The economy has experienced double digit growth as a build up to this season and the next month promises to be even better. Even Bollywood joined the celebration like no other. To me it almost seemed like a coordinated effort to boost consumer spending!

Happy Diwali to all, as businesses across the world hope that this upsurge in consumer spending will translate into more consumer spending across the globe.

Celebrating Diwali

2009-10-18T22:51:00.000-04:00

Here are some very interesting email campaigns.

Happy Diwali to all, as businesses across the world hope that this upsurge in consumer spending will translate into more consumer spending across the globe.

No Money, No Problem!

2009-10-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a business trip to India. I landed in Mumbai on October 2nd, a Friday and accidentally locked my ATM card up by re-trying the wrong pin over and over again. October 2nd was a bank holiday in India (Mahatma Gandhi's birthday). Cashless, and concerned I went online to my Indian banks web site and filled out a 'desperate request' for cash.

Within 15 minutes a branch manager called me up, empathized with me about my situation, and came to my hotel room an hour later with some money. This man made a personal loan to me from his own bank account. I felt like absolute royalty and ended up repaying the manager on Saturday morning.

'Rajeev' the bank manager has been promoting his online & mobile banking sites to his customers. Since he has a personal stake in good service, he gets alerted anytime a request for service is filled out for his branch online. He monitors this and the email requests that he gets. When he got my request, he simply saw my account, confirmed that I was good for the money, & then made a personal decision to help me out.

He said he does this to show his customers that online is effective and there are people who are paying attention to what is happening and not just providing lip service. I was merely expecting a note from the bank that would have said they understand my situation, but since it was a bank holiday my issue would be resolved the next business day.

Incredible service! And yes a very good lesson for marketers - monitor your feedback, it will drive the success of your marketing programs.

How I sold my home in ONE day!

2009-10-15T04:00:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago, I put my house upon the market. I wanted to move to a different school district and closer to the rest of my family. Rather than go through the standard call a bunch of realtors for an interview and see what they could do to sell my home, I decided to leverage the internet to create demand.

I took a lot of pictures and created online curb appeal. The blog was full of information, as was Flickr, and also a few good You Tube clips that showed the house – inside & outside, the neighborhood, useful stores, and the close by schools. I had pictures across seasons as well as lots of information that I felt would be beneficial to a prospective buyer.

Next I started advertising my home to real estate agents. I called and emailed a group of them and as I spoke to each one I followed up with an email giving them a preview into my online repository – I didn’t publish all of my pictures yet. I told them some of the story leaving room for intrigue and my final launch. I ended up having many agents visit and propose taking my business. They also gave me a number of ideas that I kept implementing. I was successful in creating a buzz in the real estate community having many of them pre-selling my home.

I finally chose one, put the home on the market, and they brought someone home that evening. The visiting couple made an offer – the deal was done. So what are the lessons for an email marketer?

Grow your list, but grow it correctly – my target market included select real estate professional and not just randomly growing my list. If you run contests ask questions before you add people else your list will remain non-responsive.

Send the first message immediately – right after each conversation, I was able to send a message to the real estate agent. I was still relevant and they were anticipating my message.

Leverage user generated content – I used real pictures, you should do the same – ask your customers to provide you with images of how they have used your products / services. This is good / real content that is appreciated.

Create intrigue & excitement – I was building my list and giving previews to what was about to come. You should use bonding programs to build up towards the big announcement.

Set a deadline – I had promised the agents that I would be making the announcement on a particular date. That helped and I also know that many of the agents were also telling their customers about a home that was about to come on the market.

Email marketing is about creating interactive conversations. Do it right, and you can yield good results.

When Your Channels Don't Talk (to each other)!!

2009-10-14T04:00:00.000-04:00

It was just past 5.00 pm, my mailbox received a tempting invite from a pizza place - $7.99 large inlcudes one free topping - pick up only! The image was phenomenal - it inspired me to order one. The price was pretty good too. I called the store, placed the order and drove by on the way home. I was really impressed by the timing of the email too.

As I drove into the parking lot, I saw a huge bill board advertising the same large pizza with three toppings for $6.99. The store called it their Monday special. I asked to speak to the store manager and was not too surprised to learn that he had no idea about what corporate marketing was doing to promote his store. It took a few clicks and of course, I did get the cheaper pizza, also, they had to bake me a new one as the one with one topping had to be tossed.

A few lessons for email marketers - first, make sure that your stores are on the email distribution list, second - make sure they pay attention to your campaigns, three - try to coordinate your specials to coincide with store events, four - why not consider an upsell for the follow up to go to the consumers in-box, & five - why not use the store sign to get people to sign up for email specials!

How to attract customers, engage them & keep them coming back

2009-10-13T04:00:00.003-04:00

I am really enjoying a new hobby of backyard birding and have learned a lot over the past few months about how to attract and keep birds coming back to my yard. I got a few feeders, a couple of bird baths, and some really good bird seed to get things started.

It took a few days for the first bird to find one of the feeders. Within a few hours, many more birds showed up, and it has been fascinating as the birds start eating and chirping from dawn until dusk. I even learned a couple of good lessons – make sure the location of the bird bath feels safe for the birds & keep the feeders full, else birds stop showing up. You have to retrain them to find the food. My yard now is full of Goldfinches, Cardinals, Titmice, Mourning Doves, & the very friendly Chickadees. My next goal is to get the Chickadees to eat out of my hands.

I got this started by luring them, engaging them with food and water, and of course getting them to come back (retaining them) by making sure that the bird bath was full and clean & I had enough seed to feed the birds. I even started mixing seeds to only to learn that it keeps the birds really interested and flying from feeder to feeder.

Marketing is about the very same principles – you have to attract / lure your prospect. You have to keep them engaged to make them a customer, and you have to learn how to bring them back. It doesn’t matter if you are working with email, direct mail, or even social media. The very same thing applies – lure – engage – retain – the magic mantra for your success.

Have a little reminder at your desk - attract - engage - retain. Look at every campaign and make sure you are thinking about all three elements in your marketing campaigns.

If you would like to join the Backyard Birder group, it is on LinkedIn.

You can also become a fan of another backyard birding club on Facebook.

Why do people transact with you?

2009-10-12T04:00:00.000-04:00

As we prepare our campaigns and plan our communiques with our lists here is a quick recap of why people transact – bank / make purchases. Broadly speaking people purchase / transact because –

1. They need it,
2. They find it of value,
3. It is something aspirational.

If you walked into a grocery store to pick up milk, eggs, & cereal for breakfast – you are satisfying a need. As you walk through the store you may see beer or soda on sale so you decide not to pass up on the good deal (value). As you are walking out of the store you eye that water fountain – it looks wonderful and sounds so serene & soothing – you think about purchasing it sometime soon – now that is aspirational.

A checking and saving account is a need, so is a credit card. Opening a six month CD for 3.25% interest would be something of value today, planning a purchase to redo your kitchen is something aspirational.

Three basic shirts from your clothing cataloger might be a need. Picking up two more to waive the shipping might be of value. Getting the shirts monogrammed or switching to French cuffs with cufflinks might be aspirational.

The key here is that the consumer gives us these opportunities to try and connect to them. As marketers we need to watch and plan for these connections. Your email strategy should take advantage of the need to showcase value, ultimately up-selling you on something aspirational.

If there are campaigns that you have liked feel free to share them with us at sundeep.kapur@gmail.com – I will post them for others as well.

How to measure the success of your email program?

2009-10-09T07:00:00.003-04:00

While there are many formulas around ROI per campaign, ROI on the program, reduction in direct mailing costs, speed to launch to market, or even consumer engagement (I am sure there are few dozen more) – the best way to gauge the success of your own program is through some introspective questioning.

As we talk to different marketers from the Panel of Peers – here are five measures that a lot of people agree on –

Cheap
Quick
Track
Personalize
Multi-channel

1 – Cheaper than paper – your company does email because direct mail costs are higher and email helps subsidize those costs.
2 – Quick way to communicate – it is a very fast way to get your campaigns out of your door into the prospects inbox.
3 – Track effectiveness of campaigns – you are concerned about measuring success of your other channel campaigns, so you are interested in seeing what is really working effectively.
4 – Personalize your messaging – you want to track what people are doing, place them in segments, and personalize each message uniquely (or strive to) towards recipients.
5 – Ability to leverage information across channels – you are using email as a means to build preference repositories and create a two way dialogue with recipients across channel.

Assign yourself a number for each one of the bullets above – most marketers have moved from two to three and some are beginning to reach stage four. There are a few companies that are in stage five.

Usually, the higher your number; the higher the level of your sophistication.

Email Absolutes from 1997 – Are they still important today?

2009-10-08T07:00:00.002-04:00

Our first event brought together 22 companies to talk about email best practices. The agenda that is listed below is something we all agreed were issues that were critical to the industry then.
1st Annual Panel of Peers
“Meetings of peers to share ideas, exchanges experiences, and create a powerful learning network through round table discussion.”

1 - Managing your customer relations across all channels

Being one face to the customer across all channels
The ability to recognize and reward your customer appropriately

2 - Using the Internet to drive business to your other channels

What is the best way to promote various aspects of your business?
Effective means of 'intimate customer communication.'
One to one marketing

3 - Growing your e-mail list effectively

Should you buy a list?
How can you leverage other channels to grow your list?
How do you personalize your communications?

The three themes that were huge then are still big today – first, do you recognize your customer or prospect as they approach you across channels, second and very important – are you really using the internet to push people to other channels as well – using email as the facilitator channel, & three how to keep your list big and responsive.

Two other points here – first we never spoke about deliverability issues and then the rest of the story.

Five of the 22 participants are Presidents of their companies today – a simple message that if you do this correctly, you can run the show. Do join our group on Linked In and also stay in touch with us through our monthly calls, the Panel of Peers is a grassroots organization we learn from each other and we would be delighted to have you.