Interesting Read: Drake Morton

Relevance Is Overrated

Do you care about your customers? (Question from Wisdm.Biz)

by Morgan Stewart, Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Marketers, especially email marketers, are obsessed with the topic of relevance. Of course, there are good reasons for this obsession. Messages targeted to subscribers based on their interests yield higher response rates. Too many irrelevant messages increase the likelihood people will unsubscribe from future email messages.

In recent years, I have become obsessed with the question, “What companies do customers think do the best job marketing to them?” After considering the thousands of responses received through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews, something occurred to me: relevance is overrated.
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Good Read: Drake Morton

Email Decision-Making: Beyond Revenue or

Best Practices

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, April 21, 2011

“Where should I put the unsubscribe link?” “Should I use a prechecked box to increase opt-ins?” “Should I send email to the addresses we collected via business cards gathered at trade shows three years ago?”

Whenever someone asks questions like these about email marketing, the answer has seemingly been pretty easy: “It depends, so test it. When in doubt, follow the generally accepted best practice.”

But, like everything else in the email world, I believe the conversation has become much more complex, and the easy answer often isn’t the right one.

At one time, we might have cited the best practice as the only way to answer questions like these or to plan out an email program. That might be the right answer if you work in an optimal situation, with an understanding management, a clean list, a healthy budget and so on.
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Good Read: Drake Morton

Five Hot Tips for Cool Summer Email Programs

by Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Seattle may have seen some snow flurries last week, but the calendar tells us that summer is fast approaching. That means it’s time to start soaking up some inspiration for sunny-day email campaigns.

Here are our top five tips for 2011 summer success:

1.     Get subscribers into your stores by leveraging cross-channel strategies. Social networking use has boomed over the past year across all age demographics. Take advantage of this growth with an extra push toward community building, especially by using social network connections to invite subscribers to shop in-store and attend brand events. When the weather’s nice, people are more likely to go out for social shopping days or to gather friends to attend special happenings, and cross-channel marketing increases the likelihood that your invites will go viral.
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Need to Read: Drake Morton

Email Use Is Not — I Repeat, NOT– Decreasing

by Morgan Stewart, Wednesday, October 13, 2010

In the landscape of communication between brands and consumers, I happen to believe that email is the foundation for building great relationships.

For example, mass media plays an important role in building awareness and long-term brand value. As Jim Spaeth of Sequent Partners pointed out recently, a considerable portion of Procter & Gamble’s balance sheet has nothing to do with its quarterly sales. Instead, it is wrapped up in the name recognition of the brands the company owns. Email will never be able to drive that kind of awareness on its own, but it can help build loyalty and influence purchasing behavior among current customers.

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You need to do this: Drake Morton

Testing eMail Elements

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Interesting Read: Drake Morton

The Last ‘Best Time to Send?’ Article

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, August 12, 2010

Just when I thought the email-marketing industry had put the “What is the best time to send email?” question behind us, I noticed a couple more blog posts on the topic this past week.

Like similar questions such as “What is the average open rate,” either these questions are fundamentally unanswerable, or pursuing the answer does not lead you to a meaningful conclusion or action.
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Very Good Read: Drake Morton

Transactional Emails 2.0: Think Beyond The Purchase

by Loren McDonald, Thursday, July 15, 2010

We marketers tend to think about the transactional email in its most literal sense, relating to a specific transaction as defined by the CAN-SPAM Act and by conventional wisdom.

But transactional emails can become a potent force in your email program when you broaden your vision and look for ways they can enrich your customer relationships, from pre- to post-transaction and beyond.

These triggered messages, based on abandonment, recent purchase and CRM data, enable additional touch points that provide further value to customers and additional revenue and customer data for your company.

Four Categories of Purchase-Related Email Message
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Excellent Read: Drake Morton

Are Your Emails Anticipated & Appreciated?

by Ryan Deutsch, Thursday, July 8, 2010

As with many of you, I have been in the marketing technology space for a little while. During that time, I have heard (and certainly spoken) my share of buzzwords. In fact, I could probably throw together 500 words on email marketing buzzwords — stay tuned for that blog post in the coming weeks! Anyway, two words I do not hear often enough in relation to email are “anticipated” and “appreciated.” There are two interesting trends occurring in the email marketing space that make these particularly relevant: the flash sale and localized marketing.

Link to vMail / video email

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Give this some thought: Drake Moton

Friday, June 25, 2010

Coupons Benefit Retailers, Too

According to the latest Online Shopper Intelligence survey, one-third of online shoppers surveyed said they generally use coupon sites while shopping online.  35 million consumers visited coupon sites in April 2010, up 5% from the year prior. Besides the consumer benefit, says the report, coupons have a significant impact on retailers’ bottom lines.

More than half of the consumers who used a coupon code during their last online purchase said that if they had not received the discount, they would not have bought the item(s), suggesting that coupons can be a highly effective sales driver.

In response to the question “If you did not have a coupon, would you have made a purchase…” respondents answered:

• No… 57%
• Yes…43%
Source: Compete, June 2010
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Good Read: Drake Morton

Three Rules For Email List Growth

by Morgan Stewart, Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The first email program I worked on in 1999 attracted over 4 million subscribers in the first year. Getting people to sign up for email promotions and newsletters used to be easy. Start with a Web site, add some decent content, a “Sign up for our free newsletter” banner, and a form — and  voila! Subscribers!

Things have changed. It’s gotten more difficult. Still, many brands are driving considerable growth in the channel and consumers report using email more and more despite recurring speculation about email’s looming demise by misinformed pundits. It’s simply that the bar is always rising. Consumers understand how to play the email game. They know that brands can deliver really good content tailored to their personal interests, and they seek out those programs.
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