So, I thought I knew about email before this summer.
I had signed up for newsletters and fan clubs. I got the coupons from online retails and bookstores. I even thought that I sent a decent amount of email in a given day. But, I had a lot to learn.
I remember the day that I had first heard about ExactTarget at a career fair. I talked with the employees at the booth for ten minutes or so and thought it was a really interesting company. I went home and began sharing with my friends about this “email company” ExactTarget:
Friends: “So what do they do?”
Me: “They send email.”
Friends: “Spam?”
Me: “No, I don’t think so. Its email you sign up for.”
Friends: “Oh, spam.”
After spending 14 weeks working for ExactTarget, I know and can explain why we actually are driven by the opposite of spam—and fight hard against companies that want to send spam.
ExactTarget is actually focused on sending relevant, permission-based email messages to consumers in a one to one marketing model that reaches specific customers that have chosen to opt-in to the particular email message.
There are two types of email messages sent out: transactional and triggered. There is also a CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 that has set out to regulate what email needs to look like.
I now realize what a powerful email marketing software platform ExactTarget is and how it can truly help raise the ROI for a company’s marketing dollar.
Kyle Schroeder
Slingshot Summer Intern
Unfortunately, co-registration is a catch all phrase for anything that involves soliciting potential subscribers on a website other than your own. As such, it may be one of the more loaded terms in email marketing.
I recently came across this great example of how NOT to do co-registration. From this example believe you will agree that the process only benefits one party—the vendor running the program (in this case a company called JoeTec Networks Inc.) Everyone else loses. Customers lose and brands lose.
It all started with a free IQ Test.
They are up front about being an advertising supported site. In fact, in the fine print of the site states “To get your IQ Results you will be required to sign up to our site and view some of our advertisers promotions. You are not required to signup for or buy any of our advertiser's products.”
They are even more transparent in their privacy policy. Here are a couple selections from that page:
Company only sends email to individuals who have agreed on the Websites to receive email from Company or to individuals who have agreed on third party websites to receive email from third parties such as Company. Company does not send unsolicited email messages. As a result, statutes requiring certain formatting for unsolicited email are not applicable to Company's email messages.
Third Party Email:
When you fill out one of our forms, you are consenting to receive e-mail that informs you about new merchandise, sales, special discounts and promotions from us and our trusted 3rd party partners. If you wish to discontinue receiving these emails you will need to click the opt-out hyperlink at the bottom of the email.
JoeTec MAY sell or transfer individual information to trusted third parties for any legaly permissible purpose at its sole discretion.
In essence, once you give them your email on any form, you’re inbox is toast. This is the perfect example of where visitors would do well to read the privacy policy. Assuming they understand what they are actually signing up for, I cannot imagine many would continue at this point. Fortunately, I have an unlimited number of junk mail addresses that I can use for this type of research on email marketing. And so I continued to take the test.
So, I completed it and got this form…
Many of these are notable brands. Worse still, some of those brands had their own forms requiring me to sign up for their deals or else the process would terminate and I wouldn’t get my test scores.
After no less than 15 pages with multiple offers and another 15 or so forms from specific companies, I finally got my IQ Test score. Apparently my willingness to submit myself to this abuse made me dumber. The score I got was a full 40 points lower than any other score I have ever received on an IQ or similar test.
But now for the consequences. In the two months that have passed since I ran this little experiment, that mailbox has received over 400 email messages. That is 200 a month, or an average of about 7 email messages per day.
A few smart brands have only sent one email to that address asking me to confirm my subscription. I received approximately 20 of these in the first week and I did not respond to any of them. Why? Not because I wasn’t interested, but because I was overwhelmed.
A few other brands continue to send email to that address. They are now on my “do not do business with” list. If companies can’t pay attention to the company they keep, then I don’t want to do business with them.
Don’t play with your companies reputation. If you are going to try co-registration (or any other non-organic list growth tactic), you need to work with experienced and reputable providers that understand the principles of true permission.
But I digress, I loved our triggered sends. I don't know if I had exposed that we were using our our Automated Interaction Management platform to get notifications running, but I am telling you now. In my head, I was only mere moments away from being able to do 1 to 1 marketing through 3sixty. We were doing exactly what we would have told our clients to do, and it was a beautiful thing.
Until I realized that if you aren't careful, you can make a dangerous mistake. We setup our triggers, and we went firing away. With every post to a wall, or answer to a question, I excitedly watched our triggered sends firing off with great satisfaction. And then, the dreaded email came - "I don't want these messages. Please unsubscribe me." No problem, right? I am all about the subscriber. Let's unsubscribe him and make him happy.
But I had made a major mistake in setting up my triggers. I classified them as transactional sends. Which is fine, and was perfectly acceptable. However, it does prevent a classic unsubscribe mechanism from working in a normal fashion. No wonder he had to send me an email.
I have told HUNDREDS of clients how the transactional message works. But in my own haste, I totally forgot. And boy, did I feel stupid. The point of this story? We all make mistakes (even us email marketers), especially when navigating some tricky technology. There are 3 things to remember if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
1. It's easy to fix, and most subscribers will take it with a grain of salt. (Even our very own Al Iverson will help you out if you really do have remorse.)
2. You'll never make the same mistake again. Ever. Trust me.
I Just Called…To Say….That Voice + Email is Powerful Punch
With all the buzz around channels like Voice and SMS, it can be tempting to implement new programs just for the sake of doing what’s hot. And let’s face it, that’s not so hot for your subscribers. So if you’ve been searching for a meaningful way to incorporate Voice into your own marketing campaigns, bravo!
Truth is, we’ve been looking, too. Sure, ExactTarget offers the integrated one-to-one platform to make sending Email, SMS and Voice from a single user interface a snap. But we’ve been known as a leading email company for years, and our B2B environment often lacks the promotional and urgent nature that’s so conducive for some emerging media.
So when R.J. Talyor, one of our Product Marketing Managers and Voice Expert Extraordinaire, approached us about conducting a Voice test for the Email Marketing Intelligence Webinar Series we’re hosting with MarketingSherpa, I was a little apprehensive. Would it add value for our webinar registrants? Would they be receptive to new channels of communication from ExactTarget? Can Voice make a measurable impact on the event attendance?
In short, all findings point to YES. I’m pleased to report that the Voice testing results from the first webinar were extremely positive. I hope you find the following information both useful and encouraging when considering how (and when) to add Voice into your own marketing mix.
Webinar Reminder Testing Goal: To find the ideal messaging mix to drive webinar attendance via reminders
Testing Approach
Registrant list split into three random groups to receive reminders the day of the event.
- Email-Only Reminder Group
- Voice-Only Reminder Group
- Email + Voice Reminder Group
Test Findings
- Email + Voice reminders drove the highest webinar attendance (43%)
- Email-only reminder came in second (36.3%)
- Voice-only reminder drove fewest attendees (29.6%)
We’ll be continuing to test Voice for the next few webinars, so sign up to see them in action and stay tuned for further results!
Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications
Melinda Baxter, Director of Marketing Services
Here’s a common question I receive. “Wow! Movies in email! Company X says it’s easy, and we should partner with them to do it. They say our clicks and sales will increase madly!”
First, here is some clarity around the technology picture:
Our whitepaper “Email Marketing Design & Rendering: The New Essentials” talks about this directly on page ten: “Embedding Flash or video in email will cause major deliverability issues. If delivered, these design elements will be stripped or disabled. If you want to use rich media, use a screenshot of the media linking to the “live” version on your website. Animated .gifs are also alternatives that work across many – but not all – email clients”
Next, I’ll focus on the impact:
ExactTarget customers (and even ET ourselves) regularly leverage videos to engage subscribers. We don’t do this by embedding the video in the email, but by linking to the video. Our own “InSight” newsletter has used this technique. Some of our customers have found that linking to video generates the highest clicks in their email – this is an excellent thing to test! The success is generally related to the relevance of the video content to the subscriber, and it’s not always a silver bullet.
We have customers that use videos to link to product demos on their web site, fashion show footage, “how to” instructional videos, CEO messages, etc.. Some have such success with videos as an engagement technique that they tease it in their subject line to increase open rates. Others have tested it against Q & As, with the Q & A format outperforming the video.
"How Stuff Works" features a video in prime real estate each newsletter (btw - I think this is a very fun newsletter to read!):
Advance Auto Parts also links to "How to" videos each newsletter, along with other interactive links...
Like any other engagement technique to increase subscriber interest and involvement in your email and brand, test it to learn what performs best for your subscribers.
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