Marketing Through the Clutter

New home for this blog

2010-03-31T14:54:00.002-04:00

Since launching this blog I've developed a website for my email marketing consultancy and have moved this blog to that site to keep everything in one place. For the latest and greatest, please redirect your browser to http://isendyouremail.com/about/welcome-to-my-blog/. Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll continue to follow my musings on email marketing at this new location.

When should we start social media marketing?

2009-06-24T13:19:00.002-04:00

Recently on MarketingSherpa, this question was posed in an article (Full link here):
When should we start with social media marketing?

Their response follows:

Social media is a powerful channel, but it works in conjunction with other efforts, such as email. You should get your email marketing tactics nailed down first, before you make a big social media push.

Here’s why: Engaging with customers and prospects through social media is another channel for two-way communications, like email. A well-developed email program can help you learn important things about your communication strategy, such as:
What types of content resonate with your audience
How frequently they want to hear from you
How to segment your audience to deliver relevant messages
How to convert visitors into subscribers who want an ongoing relationship with your brand

I’d like to add:

Before doing the above, make sure you have the infrastructure in place to handle a two-way conversation.

If you open a dialogue by sending an email, it’s important to have measures in place to keep up your end of the discussion. This means assigning someone to check the inbox of the reply-to address on your emails. It’s important to remember that someone may reply to your message with a question or solicitation for more information. Having an email like that go unanswered is a surefire way to lose a customer and inspire bad word of mouth.

The exception to the above is transactional emails. In those messages, be sure to include something like the following in your footer that’s linked to the page on your website with contact information:

Please don't reply to this email. We don't monitor this email address and won't be able to reply to email sent to it. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.

Above all, ask yourself, “Why are we doing this?”

If the answer is, “Because everyone’s talking about Twitter so we may as well do it” then you need to re-think your plan. Email is a great way to stay in touch with your constituents. Shore up the points above and you’ll be well on your way to having an email program in place that will complement your social media strategy.

Don't abuse their trust

2009-06-13T08:51:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd mentioned on my blog the importance of not taking your list's subscribers for granted, but a search didn't turn up any results on the topic. Shame on me. Guess I'm the one doing the "taking for granted" and should not assume everyone knows that.

Reading this post on Andy Sernovitz's "Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That" blog reminded me of the unique fact that email is the only form of "advertising" that people specifically ask to receive. It's so easy to create and send that it's easy to forget that your spot in your recipients' inbox isn't a right, it's a privilege. Your recipients may have asked for your communications, but only under the parameters you set forth on your sign-up page (i.e. the content and frequency you promoted).

But if you live up to the promise you made to your recipients from the get-go when they gave you their permission to send them your newsletters, you should have a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with an attentive audience. What could be better than that?!

Ask more than "So, what's your address?"

2009-06-08T12:18:00.001-04:00

Ah, the old quantity vs. quality debate. Many folks ask themselves, “Do I want a large list or an active list?” Since I am not a mind reader, there’s no way I am going to attempt to answer that for you. But for the sake of having something for you to read, let’s discuss having an active list. One way to do that would be segment your list based upon their zip code, birthday or some other demographic information. The more relevant the information a recipient receives, the more likely they are to be engaged with the messages they receive.

Here are some steps to using segmented information:

Step 1: Ask for this information on your email sign-up page.

Before you add questions willy nilly, ask yourself what the most meaningful information is to have to market your goods or services. I met someone who sold infant clothing adorned with logos of U.S. colleges and it hadn’t occurred to him to ask for the child’s birth date to send information to parents specific to their child’s size. Think beyond basic snail mail address information.

OK, that’s swell and groovy, but what if you’re thinking, “I’ve already collected 3,245 email addresses? How do I go back and add more information about these folks?”

I’m glad you asked!

Step 2: Asking for information retroactively to segment contacts already on your list.

This MailChimp blog post has a lot of great ideas for adding information organically. The idea detailed in this post is to tell list contacts that you’re having a random drawing and will send the winner a free prize if they enter more information about themselves into your database. Create a reason for your contacts to come back to your site and tell you more about themselves.

Step 3: Creating a way for list members to update their information – preference center

Sometimes called a sign-up form, a preference center is a web page that allows your contacts to tell you more about themselves and which of your offerings they want to receive. The Musician’s Friend offers this preference center that asks for information about the contact, including birthday.

And here’s an example from Rocket Software that gives an explanation for each of their newsletters.

Step 4: Be sure your preference center is set up to allow contacts to log in and make changes. All of the above is great for collecting information up-front, but enabling contacts to retroactively update their profiles is critical. If you’re going to send out a note to your list to ask recipients to come back to your site to update their profiles (like the idea mentioned in Step 2), be sure you have a way for them to do this. It may be called an “Update Profile Form” by some email service providers (ESP). No matter the name, this is a function your ESP should offer.

Now that you've gone through the process of learning more about the folks you're emailing, be sure to tailor your content to your audience's specific interests.

Don't use ESP to pick an ESP

2009-05-03T19:29:00.001-04:00

Recently I was talking with a prospective client about the advantages of using an email service provider (ESP) over sending an email in-house. This person’s hurdle was exporting her address book to upload it to ESP’s platform. Obviously, that’s a huge obstacle. I recommended that she begin the process of figuring out how to recreate her address book in another platform before she had to resort to manually reconstructing her address book in an excel file.

But barring any issues, like that, here are a few reasons for recommending someone use an ESP over sending bulk emails from a standard email client, such as Outlook or Yahoo! mail:

CAN-SPAM: The CAN-SPAM law became effective in 2004 and requires that email marketing messages include the physical address of the sender and that unsubscribes are processed and honored within 10 days of the subscribers’ request. This isn’t something that most standard mail clients are set up to handle, but a reputable ESP should offer list management tools that can handle this for you.

Potential blacklisting: Standard email clients are not designed for email marketing. They are not approved for bulk mailings, so your messages will most likely be labeled as ‘spam’ by other email clients as well as by most of the ISPs, which will bounce them back to you or simply delete them. Your efforts will be rendered useless since your message will not reach the intended recipients’ mailboxes and the address you sent it from will eventually be ‘blacklisted.’

Real-time reporting: A comprehensive ESP can provide several, thorough real-time reports on the number of emails sent, the number of emails actually opened and who in your address list actually opened your message; the number of unsubscribes and who unsubscribed; how many were undeliverable and why they were bounced; the click-through rates –including which links in your message were more effective and who clicked through. All this information is invaluable when you plan and evaluate campaigns, fine-tune promotions and want to distribute very targeted marketing materials.

Other benefits of using an ESP include:

Testing variables, such as when is the best time to send an email or a subject line, to achieve maximum results for your email
Most ESPs offer a tool that allows you to produce your own HTML emails, even if you don't know HTML. HTML allows you to incorporate columns, images, color, bold, italic, and other elements that are a better way to present information.

Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish when picking an ESP. Here’s an article that can help steer you through the process. The last line sums up the process best: “There’s no such thing as a silver bullet for inbox delivery. No single solution or provider will be able to guarantee you perfect results. But the right ESP with the right tools and the will to collaborate on optimization will help you improve your ability to reach your customers effectively.”

Spammers back at it

2009-03-31T12:45:00.003-04:00

It's a bit disheartening to see this story in the New York Times with the headline "Spam Back to 94% of all E-Mail." Though this story is about malicious spammers who have found a way around the McColo take down last fall that cut off spam traffic, it lumps in opt-in email messages as if they're unwanted as well. Not all commercial emails are spam!

Stand out with relevant content

2009-02-25T21:53:00.003-05:00

Making your email messages relevant is more important than ever as the number of channels by which information can be conveyed grows (i.e. Twitter, Facebook) on top of existing methods of reaching your audience (TV, radio, newspaper, etc.). Thus the need to hone in on your audience’s interests is critical.

Batch and Blast or Tune In?

Loren McDonald, VP of Industry Relations for Silverpop, recently warned that email frequency is out, behavior is in. (You can check out his entire presentation here.) He recommends using behavior-based communications to avoid low-relevancy messages, which lead to subscriber churn. What does that mean?

Follow-up emails after someone has abandoned a shopping cart
Messaging buyers who haven’t purchased in a fixed amount of time to remind them it may be time to re-order
Ask for more than an email address: collect birthdays, geographical information or other information that will you better identify their needs

Don’t abuse the inbox!

Just this past week, an article appeared on BusinessWeek.com about “un-sexy” but successful enewsletters. Here’s the link to the entire article. This quote from DailyCandy founder Dany Levy was the key take away from the article for me: “It's a privilege to be in someone's e-mail box.” (And that is certainly how I feel about the I Send Your Email newsletter subscribers!)

Remembering it isn’t your right to that your message is in your recipient’s inbox is critical. With that in mind, thinking about what your audience wants to hear from you is a good first step towards developing a meaningful relationship with your audience through relevant messaging.

Email resolutions

2009-01-26T12:02:00.005-05:00

I sent this out recently to my I Send Your Email newsletter sign-up list, but wanted to share the information here as well. Here's where you can sign-up for the monthly newsletter with tips and information to get this sent to you directly.

Email resolutions

It's a safe bet that we've all made New Year's resolutions at some point in our lives. With this newsletter, I Send Your Email has decided to apply the idea of pledging to do something "the right way" to email marketing. Below are a few things you should resolve to do to make the most of your email marketing program in 2009. Also, with a new year, a new budget often isn't far behind. Also included some articles to help make the case for email marketing when it comes time to allocating your marketing dollars.

With my email, I resolve to....

Make the Open-or-Delete Decision Easy: Use a subject line that tells (not sells) what’s inside the message. Write a concise subject message with the value proposition in the first line of text in your message).

Make Your Message Easy to Share: Include functionality that lets recipients post your e-mail on their social networks. Be sure to include your subscription information to take advantage of this expanded audience.

Leverage What You Know: Develop more targeted, relevant offers and messaging by making the most of what you know about your customers, such as their demographics and/or past buying behavior.

I could go on with a much longer list of things to think about before sending your email, but Seth Godin has already done a fantastic job developing such a list. Since I see no point in reinventing the wheel, I’ll link to his excellent checklist of things to think of before hitting the send button.

Recession-Proof Marketing
Many experts agree that email marketing is one of the best options when allocating marketing dollars in a tough economy. Here are two articles that support that claim. You may want to consider sharing them with the decision makers in your life to keep email in the mix in 2009.

Ride out the recession with e-mail
John Rizzi points out in DM News “e-mail's ability to help you protect your most valuable asset in a down economy: loyal customers.” He also points out “e-mail marketing offers more cost-effective opportunities to surprise and delight your customers, while at the same time generating a quick sale or two.”

Tips for protecting your email marketing budget
Spencer Kollas shares that “the Direct Marketing Association estimates that email will bring in $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008.” That could be music to your boss’s ears! Once you get approval to spend on email marketing, Kollas points out ways to spend your budget wisely.

Again, if you're interested, here's where you can sign-up for the I Send Your Email newsletter.

Sherpa chart: Marketers Tailoring Digital Tactics in Recessionary Economy

2008-11-18T14:33:00.001-05:00

From Marketing Sherpa:

SUMMARY: Every marketing tactic gets more scrutiny when budgets face the sting of a struggling economy. Here is a glance at how marketers expect to tailor their investments in digital tactics during a downturn.

As an email marketing consultant, I am pleased to see that almost half of those surveyed are investing in their email database, though it's to be expected given email's low cost and proven ROI. The increased focus on house lists, with a decrease in spending on rrental lists could mean more opportunity for cross-channel promotions to increase house lists, i.e. using paid search to encourage new visitors to register for an email marketing program.

Temporary hiatus

2008-10-29T18:19:00.003-04:00

Thanks to those of you who have asked if I've abandoned this blog, but rest assure that is not the case! I've just taken a temporary leave to get caught up on my workload, but I'll be back in early November with more posts.

I appreciate your interest!

Wrong source for lipstick information

2008-09-10T08:30:00.002-04:00

I noticed a spike in traffic yesterday to this blog of people searching "you can put lipstick on a pig." After a little bit of Google searching myself, I discovered Obama used the phrase yesterday in a speech. To everyone who landed on this post I wrote in June 2007, but was looking for a story about Obama using that expression, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Talk about learning current events by way of your blog stats....

Study: Email is cheap and we like it

2008-08-14T18:14:00.001-04:00

This week's Marketing Sherpa Chart of the Week highlights marketing spend allocated towards email.

Here's the chart, taken from the organization's Benchmark Survey:

A takeaway from the above is that just as many people said email is cheap or free and fine as it is as did those who find it to be a powerful tool that's worth spending enough on to stay on top of it.

Yes, email is an inexpensive marketing tool, but I think the "junk-in, junk-out" rule applies here. Companies will only get so much out of their email programs if they don't allocate proper resources towards them. MailChimp blogged about a company that notched a $157,000 ROI from its email campaign. (OK, this company deals in precious metals, but still.)

It is my hope that the 31% group grows and more companies begin to realize the power that the channel carries. As the market for mobile messaging grows, I see email as a complementary channel growing alongside it.

E-m-a-i-l: Email, email, email!

2008-08-12T13:45:00.001-04:00

No sooner did I write about the importance of combining text with images in email design did I come across this email from the New York Jets:

It's lovely to look at, but it goes against everything I believe in as far as email design is concerned. I'll give the team credit for blasting this message at 4 a.m., mere hours after the deal to acquire QB Brett Favre transpired. But I wonder how many Jets fans, before they've had their morning coffee, opened up their email to find something that appeared as jibberish to them. This could have been how some even learned that their beloved Gang Green was now home to the former Green Bay signal caller!

I know, more questions than answers here. But another example of how something rushed into the pipeline could have resulted in some missed opportunities.

Email design: The good, bad and ugly

2008-08-11T21:34:00.001-04:00

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of HTML-only emails. My settings, like those of most people, have images turned off.

In fact, here’s a quote from a Marketing Sherpa study:

MarketingSherpa data indicates that 59% of consumers and 90% of business email users view some or all of their email with images turned off. This includes people who may view email in their preview panels with images turned off (remember, this is the default for many email clients including Gmail and some versions of Outlook). It also includes people who view their email on a mobile device, such as a BlackBerry.

(This matches past posts here and here about the need to consider viewing email on PDAs.)

With many in planning mode for their Q4 holiday email campaigns, I wanted to show the good, the bad and the ugly of email design. It may have been chic at one time to put form ahead of function, but nowadays, good marketers know that improper planning and design can be costly. Style no longer trumps substance, but they still should complement each other.

Here’s the ugly message that I receive from Fifth Group Restaurants on a weekly basis. (Click the links to view the examples.) With images turn off and images turned on. If I didn’t display the images, I’d have NO idea what their message was trying to convey. (You only get so much from a subject line.)

Here’s a bad example. Images off (as it first appeared in my inbox) and after I turned the images on. There’s some information in the alt-tags, but darned if I get anything meaningful from it. Shame on them for putting the text into image format.

The winner (in my inbox) comes from Upromise. Even with the images turned off, I get the gist of their message. Turning them on complements the text. They still have a top navbar either way.

Here’s a quick and dirty list of things to think about and best practices (it’s by no means complete):

KISS – Keep it simple, stupid. Don’t pack too many bells and whistles into an HTML email
Use alt tags and support text around images. If a reader’s setting have turned off images, they’ll still get the essence of your message
If manually coding your message, lay it out with tables
If you’re not going the Design DIY route, use an email service provider with existing templates
Test, test, test

And here’s a list from Feb. 2007 that lists the default setting for images for most of the major email clients.

(Belated) Meet-up recap

2008-08-08T09:17:00.004-04:00

I have been terribly remiss in posting a follow-up to an earlier post that mentioned I'd be speaking at an Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs Meet-up last month. For a full review of the event, here's a recap by Ben Chesnut of MailChimp, who was also a speaker. His take is much wittier than anything I could put together. Again, I want to thank Mike Schinkel for the invitation to speak and for documenting the event. (That's one of his photos at the right, taken from his Flickr set.)

I also wanted to link to the presentation I gave at the event. It's uploaded to Slideshare, which is a great way for sharing slide decks. I titled it "Email 101" since it's pretty much an overview of things to consider when beginning an email marketing program. Another similar site for sharing PowerPoint presentations is 280 Slides, which I learned about from Ben at the Meet-up event. It is not a requirement that your deck have 280 slides, by the way.

What is this blog about?

2008-08-07T09:43:00.003-04:00

I'd say this is pretty accurate - email, marketing, Atlanta-based, communication on different platforms.

This was created by wordle.net. I just plugged in this blog's URL and presto.

Further proof that email is essential

2008-07-22T20:10:00.001-04:00

The following is from an article in the Charleston (S.C.) Business Journal:

In a May 2008 study of consumer attitudes conducted by the research firm Ipsos for Habeas Inc., 67% preferred e-mail as the primary method of personal and business communication. A majority (88%) said they would like organizations to give them more choice over the content and frequency of e-mails they receive, including ads, offers, articles, newsletters, white papers and other content.

This is exactly what I covered in the Email Marketing 101 presentation I gave last week to the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs Meet-up. Knowing what your audiences wants - and how often they want it - is critical to your email program's success.

The article went on to give an example of how email can be effective when combined with other components of the marketing mix, such as a direct mail piece in this instance.

h/t: Douglas Karr

Look before hitting reply

2008-07-16T16:56:00.001-04:00

Seth Godin blogged today about emails that explicitly say, "Do not reply to this email. Here's his take.

Email is a unique medium in that it can be personalized and allows for instant feedback. Seeing that note at the bottom is a pet peeve of mine. I shared my address with them and indicated that I was open to their messages, I think the least they could do would be reciprocate and have an open line of communication!

For transactional emails, I can understand this. And, as Seth points out, larger companies may not be expected to sift through the one-off responses that emails could generate.

But, for smaller companies, having a dedicated reply-to address for emails is imperative. It's a step email newbies are likely to forget. But in doing so, they're missing an opportunity to have human-to-human interaction with their customers. Ones that want to hear from them, no less!

Want to use email to drive site traffic?

2008-07-15T23:06:00.001-04:00

I'll be speaking this Thursday, July 17, at the next Meet-up event for the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs group.

Here are the details:

Event title: Using Email Marketing to Drive Traffic to your Website
Day: Thursday, July 17
Location: Georgia Tech ATDC, 75 5th Street, NW, Hodges Room, 3rd floor Atlanta, GA 30308
Time: 6: 45 p.m.

You can register for the event, by clicking here. I'll be wearing my I Send Your Email hat and talking about what to keep in mind when thinking of launching an email marketing program.

I hope to see you there!

Palm doesn't want to get lost in the shuffle

2008-07-11T16:38:00.005-04:00

I have received two emails in two days from Palm touting their Centro smartphone. With today's launch of the new iPhone, I guess Palm is trying to do its best to keep their product in the collective consciousness of telephone shoppers.

It's a nice idea, but I think it's a reach for Palm to think the Centro could be a replacement for an iPhone.

And today's message (at right) is pretty weak in my opinion. The call-to-action ("learn more") is buried and the font size touting the new color is awfully small. The new color feature is touted in the subject line - Palm(R) Centro(TM) smartphone now in Electric Blue on AT&T - but I think it should be written as prominently as the "Palm(R) Centro(TM) smartphone" headline above it.

OK, end of rant. But I will end by giving Palm credit for adding features to its phone and having a compelling reason to send today's blast. I just hope they set their expectations accordingly.

Well, now you know

2008-07-04T10:15:00.004-04:00

I've been a member of Facebook for over a year. This morning I logged-in to Facebook and was confronted with this at the top of my home page: What gives? Why am I just not being asked that question? Makes me wonder how I been identified in others' feeds all this time...

Quantifying the clutter

2008-06-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

When I created this blog, I had information such as this in mind:

“As consumers, we see over 3,156 images a day. We’re just not conscious of them,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the consumer research firm NPD Group. “Our subconscious records maybe 150, and only 30 or so reach our conscious behavior. If I have a celebrity as part of that message, I just accelerated the potential for my product to reach the conscious of the consumer.”

That quote is found in a NY Times article about the power of celebrity and how some brands can enhance their message's relevancy by using celebrities to hawk their products.

It illustrates the competition marketers have for consumers' attention and the importance of using smart methods to cut through the clutter. But "smart" doesn't always have to mean using a celebrity. It just happened to have helped in the cases cited in that article.

Technorati Tags: Marketing clutter

What's new?

2008-06-18T11:44:00.000-04:00

I have been gone from this blog for too long, but I haven't forgotten about it in the meantime. I've been sidetracked by a few projects and am planning to turn by attention back to this beloved blog.

When I do, I am predicting that the majority of my posts will be related to email marketing. I've begun an email marketing consultancy and would like to keep my posts focused on that area of marketing, rather than just marketing stuff in general. Time has helped me learn that I need to focus on one aspect rather than try to be a generalist. I have gravitated to email marketing in the course of my freelance work - it's what I enjoy most - so that will be the easiest thing for me to blog about.

Lately I've been working on my consultancy's web site. For now the .biz version is functioning (www.isendyouremail.biz) but I am working on the .com version and am looking forward to sharing that with everyone soon.

I've also been added to the MailChimp roster of experts (found here) and have enjoyed getting to know them and their excellent service.

On Tues., June 24 I'll be speaking to the Atlanta Online Merchants Meetup group on the topic of email marketing. Thanks in advance to Eric Winter for this opportunity. The event is at 6 p.m. at the Peachtree Branch of the Atlanta Public library if you'd like to attend. Click on the meetup link above to register.

Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs - May 15

2008-05-14T13:50:00.003-04:00

I'll be taking part in a Meetup event tomorrow, May 15, for Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs called "Ask the Experts."

The AWE group is intended for anyone interested in starting or running their own web-based businesses, especially those who are currently running successful web-based businesses and want to find, get to know, and learn from their peers.

For this month's meeting, there will be six or seven tables with four 20 minute sessions each where attendees can ask questions of and have peer discussions with “experts” in various fields regarding web entrepreneurship.

I'll be covering email marketing, but there will be people there to cover SEO, social media, branding, e-commerce, legal issues, video and much more. The list is way too long for me to include here, so click this link for the entire rundown.

Thursday May 15th, 2008 at 6:45pm to 9:00pm (dinner afterwards @ Gordon Biersch)
Ga. Tech ATDC, 3rd Floor Hodges Room (Parking North Side of Building)
$10 prepay, $20 at the door
RSVP at Meetup.com (RSVP by 12 noon on May 15th is REQUIRED)

Thanks to Mike Schinkel for the invitation to participate.

Look Kids, Big Ben, Parliament

2008-04-10T08:46:00.003-04:00

Big Ben
Originally uploaded by sandi_karchmer_solow

In my first real foray into using Flickr to share photos after a vacation, two of my photos were located by a writer for NowPublic.com, a Canadian news sharing organization. I went to London over this past weekend and took some shots of Big Ben, which can be found at right and here. Neither are anything spectacular, but they fit into a story she wrote on the 150th birthday of Big Ben.

I am just amazed that in all of the photos on Flickr, mine were located and I was contacted about them. (Not that this is anything new, as Hyku would tell me.) I guess it just goes to show that the right tagging and description can help separate your work from the rest of the online clutter.