ExactTarget’s marketing department is a very busy place to be these days. Not only did we kick off the ExactTarget Route 1-to-1 Seminar Series in Atlanta on April 22nd, we also launched a brand new ExactTarget website!
The ExactTarget website includes new functionality including the ability to research information about one-to-one technologies that are relevant to a particular industry, business challenge, or technology requirement. The “by business challenge” section is my personal favorite. We all have a list of “if I could only figure out how to use email marketing to do xyz” questions and this area of the website provides information and solutions pertinent to your challenge!
With the development of the new website, we empowered our marketing department to manage content and calls to action with robust technology. The deployment of Ektron as our content management system enables our team to proactively add new pages, new content and edit existing content without requiring the assistance of a technical resource. Ryan Oldfather, our Internet Marketing Manager, is particularly excited about the Ektron implementation and also the deployment of Omniture Site Catalyst for our web analytics. With Omniture, Ryan will have the data to make changes to the website based on user behavior and website traffic.
There are many folks to thank within ExactTarget for their assistance with the new website including our Marketing Communications team, Marketing Operations team, our System Administrators and the Solutions Consulting team. We would also like to thank Optiem for their assistance with the technical development of the website!
What are you waiting for – check out the new ExactTarget website!!
Erin Howe
Director, Marketing Programs
A couple of conversations today prompted me to take a fresh look at the "mobile email problem", as I have come to think of it. After reading our whitepaper "Email Marketing for the Third Screen" a client asked, "But I am still not sure exactly what to do!" Yep, you are not alone.
There are a lot of ideas out there about how to solve the problem. Some are better than others. Some are simply poor and short-sided... but I digress. Fact is, all of the proposed solutions are nothing more than workarounds to a complicated and baffling problem derived from the fact that no common coding standards exist. Optimize for one scenario and you mess up performance for another. There is no simple quick fix.
Now that I have rained on everyone's parade, the larger question really is "What is going to FIX the mobile email problem?" This question was raised in a discussion this afternoon. The following is an edited response I posted to that group. Enjoy!
The right answer is for mobile devices to adopt standards for rendering email such that current coding standards work. This is similar to the standardization efforts that helped unify the internet. Remember when the internet was littered with images like this? Thankfully they are gone now.
The initial thought was to muster the email troops and lobby for the adoption of standards that would better serve the consumer. However, the market forces against getting manufacturers to standardize how they treat email are simply too strong at the moment. Consider that iPhone recently leapfrogged the entire industry in their ability to render email and now RIM (Blackberry) has Apple pegged as enemy #1. How well these devices support mobile email is a huge competitive advantage and when you are talking about selling cell phones, you are talking about big, big bucks. In several attempts to engage with people who could influence the adoption of industry standards I was met with head shaking and laughing, as if to say, "How naive?"
Fortunately, Apple has done more for creating the necessary pressure than any lobby could ever hope to do. Their move with the iPhone was a huge step toward "rendering email properly". The pressure they have applied to the market to handle email and the online experience well (no matter how much one may agree or disagree about "how well" thus far) is already accelerating changes in the market. RIM knows they are in a fight as they enter the consumer smartphone market. They will need to update their enterprise mail server capabilities and get with the times... or get their teeth kicked in. All Apple needs to do is drop their price to $100 for a smartphone and RIM drops out of the consumer battle. Since the consumer smartphone market is is where the big money is in the coming years, it is imperative for RIM to upgrade the way they handle email and the web. I believe that B2B trends will follow quickly... or else RIM will go the way of Lotus Notes to be only used when IT has already invested too much to pull out.
My belief is that this problem will fix itself through market competition in the next 2-3 years, which is faster than a lobby would probably have an impact. We have not seen the long term solution yet, but it is coming--the competition is fierce, and that is a good thing for our cause. After getting laughed at realizing the economic forces at work, we stopped trying to beat the "thy must standardize" drum.
For now, mobile email remains a big challenge. Only a select few have figured out solutions that are even halfway decent. Nothing stellar. There is the trade-off between desktop appearance and mobile rendering. Where mobile is highly likely (e.g., travel alerts) then go with simple single column, boring old email. If simply trying to accommodate for a mobile audience where readership is more likely to happen on a desktop, then then trying to minimize the distortion of email on the mobile device by using tools like Pivotal Veracity eDesign Optimizer for mobile devices and then leverage a click to view solution (where the landing page determines the type of browser and then renders the page accordingly). Unfortunately, that is still the best I have come across.
ExactTarget is committed to investigating other alternatives. Moreover, this is a personal passion of mine and there are many others at ExactTarget passionate about finding better workarounds. We are optimistic that a decent workaround is on the horizon, but not foolishly so--there will not be a perfect workaround until standards emerge. If you have ideas that you would recommend or like to try, let us know, we would love to work with you.
A: Absolutely. Good sender reputation is critical whether you're sending transactional emails or commercial emails, and whether you're sending messages via ExactTarget's triggered email interactions or sending a traditional campaign to a list of subscribers.
Regardless of whether email is triggered to an individual subscribers or sent via a marketing campaign to many subscribers, senders with a good reputation get their mail delivered to the inbox, while those with a poor reputation find their mail in the junk folder…or worse.
Sender reputation is typically most affected by complaint and bounce rates. It’s no surprise that if you get too many complaints or have too many bounces, and you'll damage your sender reputation. You can avoid complaints by sending mail that subscribers have asked for and are expecting to receive, as well as mail that subscribers find relevant. Triggered emails are often the most anticipated and relevant messages you can send; however, overwhelming a recipient with unrelated promotional content or an envelope field that doesn’t represent your brand can increases the chance they may complain about your message.
Bounces can be mitigated by building in a method of address verification into your address capture process. Often, asking users to enter their address twice to verify that both entries match will eliminate typos. And, ensuring that your content is compelling will help ensure users give you a legitimate address to begin with.
Phil Schott
Sr. Deliverability Consultant
With tax season at its annual April 15th climax, my attention has naturally been focused on one thought, and one thought only: I hope TurboTax got the math right, because frankly it would stink to be audited. Never having been audited, I picture the process being about as enjoyable as an evening singing Alvin & The Chipmunks karaoke…with Celine Dion.
There is one type of audit, however, that I can whole-heartedly support—the email marketing audit. I conducted my first email marketing audit on behalf of a client back in 2003, and honestly, neither the process nor the tremendous ROI upside has changed that much since then. In a nutshell, to conduct an email marketing audit, you:
- Identify & map the different types emails that are being sent to customers, prospects, partners, and other constituents
- Interview internal staff and external partners who play any part in creating or delivering emails to your various audiences
- Document the systems—ecommerce, CRM, ESP, etc.—through which these messages are being sent
- Document the points of current integration between these systems, if any
- Document the email creation, broadcast, and reporting process
- Analyze the creative being used across all of the different message types
- Analyze any available performance data for the different message types
- Make prioritized recommendations on how to improve performance and streamline processes based on your findings
Does this email marketing audit process require a significant investment of time and effort? Absolutely. Is the ROI worth the investment? Yes—but only if your organization is committed to turn the audit recommendations into reality.
A thorough email marketing audit uncovers all sorts of “low-hanging fruit” opportunities for marketers. The quick wins often range from improved design to verifiable delivery to the holy grail of one-to-one marketing—a consolidated view of all enterprise messaging at the individual subscriber level.
Even more importantly, triggered emails that were once the shadowy purview of IT or e-commerce developers now appear clearly on the marketing team’s radar for review and optimization. Examples of such triggered emails include:
- Welcome emails
- Automated replies (from customer service, HR, product, and other inquiries)
- Order confirmations
- Shipping alerts and confirmations
- Abandoned shopping cart notices
- Account alerts
- Registration confirmations
- Event reminders
- Membership confirmations
- Service notices (including those relating to service disruptions)
- Account expiration notices
If you know your organization is sending out any of these types of triggered emails—but your marketing department lack visibility into the creation, design & deployment—then it may be time to don your best blue suit and start auditing. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you’re able to identify opportunities for improvement.
For more information on ExactTarget’s extensive email marketing audit services, please contact us. For a more ideas on how to set up and conduct an email marketing audit on your own, check out Marketing Sherpa’s Email Marketing Audit Kit.
There, I said it. And I’ll say it again: triggered email is only as good as your data. I know, I know…now I have to back that claim up.
If you’re sending triggered emails in response to one-time events (for example, welcome emails, website confirmation downloads, etc.) then chances are your data is pretty good. Someone does “something” (subscribes, purchases, downloads, etc.) and you trigger an email in response to whatever that something may be.
These are often the most easy-to-implement triggered messages, which is why so many marketers have started to not only use, but optimize them. Like many of you, we here at ExactTarget have made leaps and bounds in our triggered emails over the past year, including:
• Defining what the “somethings” that result in a trigger are
• Capture those “somethings” and feeding the data into our CRM database of records
• Triggering an email out of ExactTarget using our triggered email interactions
• Tracking the holistic performance of the triggered emails
• Making adjustments on the fly (without involving our web developer, which makes him very happy) for maximum performance.
Typing the list above makes it seem easy. Get the data, then trigger an email. We’d like for all our email messages to be sent using the process above. But what about the following, more complicated, scenarios?
• The “something” event is comprised of multiple data points
• The data lives in multiple systems
• Your data isn’t clean
Not so easy. At least, not for us (and I’m guessing that means not for you, either). Take, for example, a satisfaction survey we’d like to send 90 days before a customer is due to renew their contract with us, followed by a reminder email if they haven’t yet completed it, or a thank you email if they have.
In theory, this would be an easy series to trigger: Send #1 = Renewal date – 90 days. Send #2 = Triggered thank you upon completion OR reminder email 7 days after survey invite sent. But…
• We have multiple (sometimes hundreds) subscribers stored per account in our CRM system. Not all contacts should receive the message.
• The data about what is due to renew / when it is due to renew is stored in a separate area of our CRM system, with no easy way to tie a subscriber to the renewal opportunity.
• Because we don’t delete data from our CRM system, the subscriber may no longer work at the company. This information is often manually typed in to a data field (i.e. “Patricia NO LONGER THERE.”) Look familiar?
• The extensive survey is hosted by a third-part vendor, which means there is no real-time visibility into whether someone has completed the survey within our own system.
The list goes on, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of manual data cleaning that goes into pulling a satisfaction survey list and sending the series. So while this seems like an ideal campaign to trigger, it’s just not easy. And I’m guessing that we’re not alone in this challenge.
While I don’t have a solution to the overall data issues that impede implementing more triggered / automated emails, I can tell you this – understanding what data is needed, where it lives, and what obstacles stand in the way of easily getting that is a huge first step in the right direction. As the old saying goes, not knowing is half the battle. So if you’re looking to automate or optimize your triggered email marketing and have found yourself in a similar situation, understanding your data is a good place to start.
Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications
Melinda Baxter, Director of Marketing Services
We talk about email design as the seamless merging of design and technology to deliver powerful business results. A few of the Designers at ExactTarget sat down to answer some questions about the “day in the life” of an email marketing designer that loves the challenge to deliver business success through design.
What is the background of an Email Marketing Designer?
I have always been a “visual” person, graduating from I.U.’s Herron School of Art and Design with a degree in Visual Communications. I am a designer of brands, print ads, logos, and all types of marketing communications. My inner geek loves to bring my design skills to pixel perfection.
- Justine
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I have been designing since I was a kid – illustrations, characters, computer graphics, and animation. I studied Animation at Purdue’s school of Technology bringing my love of design to computerized mediums. Since then I have been addicted to moving innovative design into powerful interactive media.
- Tim
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I have designed since birth – never without a sketch pad, moving from crayons to oils to Adobe Creative Suite. I have a fine arts background that enables me to design convincingly and artfully to deliver business results.
- Lacey
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My background is in graphic design - print, web, motion graphics, video editing. I have a good aptitude to learn new media and skills and love the challenge each new media offers. I have always been customer-facing in my career, so understand how to focus on the business opportunity the design needs to solve.
- Chris
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So, why did you choose to become a designer for email marketing?
I love to solve customer business challenges through visual communications. Taking my love and appreciation of design to build an intelligent, highly motivating communication is a blend of my passions.
- Justine
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I am a problem-solver. The opportunity to master the ever-changing email marketing landscape through a combination of design and html coding nuances is a great daily job for me. I have the tenacity to keep trying until the email is the best it can be.
- Tim
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Email is the most pervasive and impactful communication medium today. For a designer the palette is rich with creative opportunity to explore and test its potential. It is an entrepreneurial dream that continues to expand as the environment changes constantly.
- Chris
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As an artist, I thrive on exploring new ways to express ideas in design that create a response. I have the opportunity to design for numerous small and large companies, across a wide range of industries to keep my talent fresh and evolving.
- Lacey
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What skills do you think serve you best as an Email Marketing Designer?
Definitely design skills. Working for top companies across the world, they expect great design interpretation of their brand. It is really important that my designs are synergistic with their web site and offline communications to build trust in email. Yet, email is its own unique medium with a very different design strategy to be successful.
- Lacey
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Agreed. Design skill is really the starting point. Every medium has a unique environment to take into consideration, and email is certainly challenging due to the lack of standards around how the email will display from one email client to another (AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook, etc...). Understanding how HTML renders – and taking this into consideration as you design - is a necessity.
- Justine
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Hunger and persistence to find solutions to design and build emails in this standards-free environment is really important. It isn’t an afterthought, but an integrated part of the design process. Testing is an on-going process, for each and every email design.
- Tim
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There is on-going need for retention of cumulative knowledge to stay best-in-class in this constantly changing environment. Knowledge from testing results, changes in the industry, consumer trends and design trends need to be incorporated into all designs. It’s about results, not just attractive designs.
- Chris
When speaking with ExactTarget clients about integration, it’s rare that we discuss email design best practices. Typically, our focus is on how, why, when, and where to integrate ExactTarget with other business processes. In general, I leave the email design questions to our talented Design and Strategy teams!
However, there is one situation I’ve encountered where email design enters the integration conversation: the question, “What has to be done for me to change the email that is being sent out via an automated process?”
In the past, there were two solutions for this situation. The first was to stop the existing automated process, which had to be completed by a developer. Then, the marketer could modify the existing email and work with the developer to start the process up again. This was cumbersome for most companies, because developer resources are typically scarce and it takes too long to coordinate the effort.
The second option was to create a new email (producing a new unique email ID) which was then provided to the developer to update the automated process code. This second solution was usually the path clients took in order to get the switch scheduled at the correct time. While the solution worked, it was certainly not ideal – especially to the marketers, whose changes are typically time-sensitive.
ExactTarget listened to the pain this situation caused and solved it with our triggered email interactions. Triggered emails are typically the emails that are automated and they’re usually the emails that change frequently. To address this issue, we give creative and automation change control to the marketer.
After the initial API call is written and in production, the developer has completed his/her part of the process. With triggered send interactions, the marketer has the ability to pause, modify, and restart their automated email sends – all within the ExactTarget user interface. Here’s the beauty of the solution that developers will appreciate: while the email is paused and being modified, the API calls are queued up so no email sends are lost. When the definition is started again, the queued API calls are processed and sent using the new email creative, and any incoming API calls also send the updated email.
In other words, this entire modification / redesign process can be completed without any development resources. This allows marketers to focus on email design and not have to worry about coordinating time with a developer in the process. As you can imagine, this solution makes marketers and developers extremely happy!
Jessica Koch
Integration Consultant
The ExactTarget Partnership Team is excited to announce a marketing technology partnership with SensorPro. SensorPro, based in Limerick, Ireland and San Francisco, CA, markets an on-demand enterprise level survey tool that allows clients to gather real time data on their customers. Some of their global client base include: Coty, Pepsi, Northwest Airlines, Tesco and Procter and Gamble.
By combining SensorPro’s advanced survey tool with ExactTarget, our joint customers will gain increased knowledge of their subscribers, enabling their ability to send highly personalized messages. Development of an integration between SensorPro and ExactTarget is well underway and we look forward to rolling out the solution shortly.
Learn more about SensorPro by checking out their website. Think SensorPro can help with your survey needs? Contact us!
Interested in becoming an ExactTarget Marketing Technology Partner? Read about our program, view our current partners, and fill out a partner inquiry form.
Lauren Hertler
Partner Relationship Manager
If you didn't see it already, ExactTarget and Email Data Source announced a partnership in November. Check out the press release.
Since then, I have been getting questions about how to use competitive intelligence to improve your email program. Here are just a few of the ways we use competitive intelligence.
- In strategic planning, use competitive intelligence to monitor what appears to be working for your competitors. Email Analyst allows us to look at the email messages that competitors are sending and it provides insight on the traffic that those emails may be driving through an overlay of site traffic data from Alexa. This provides incredible insight into what appears to be working for competitors. Thus, it provides good insight into messaging components that the client may want to consider.
- Look for positive trends in subject lines. Wondering if terms like "Free shipping" are overused? Are they really taboo? Competitive intelligence can help you assess different terms and phrases you are considering using in your subject lines. With Email Analyst's view into site traffic data, you can also get a feel for whether or not these "taboo" phrases really are taboo! (Hint: they probably aren't if your sender reputation is good)
- Track the frequency and cadence of competitors email programs.
- Evaluate the in-house vs. 3rd party email mix of your competitors. Many companies drive traffic to their site through links in 3rd party emails. A competitive intelligence tool allows you to see which emails are driving traffic to your competitors sites... and it allows you to look at the links (content links, text ads, banner ads, etc) that are driving the traffic. Moreover, it allows you to figure out who your competitors are partnering with early on, and allows you to develop a counter-strategy.
- Track where your brand is showing up. This is especially important when working with affiliates. Bill McClosky, founder of EDS, told me about meeting a prospect who asserted that their affiliates were not, absolutely not, sending email on their behalf. A quick search in Email Analyst proved that wrong... something like 30 emails had been sent in the prior month that drove traffic to the prospects website... all affiliates.
- Identify new partners. By searching for key phrases and terms that are used in emails, you can identify like minded companies that are leveraging similar phrases and, thus, may be targeting similar audiences. Sure, some of these will be direct competitors... but some may be future partners!
The difference between doing email appends right and doing them wrong involves changing one significant step… the outbound message. Instead of the outbound message containing a link to opt-out, the outbound email marketing message should have registration as the primary call to action. This approach to email appends is called "opt-in" email append.
ExactTarget was one of the early proponents of this approach and we have now real life experience with this approach under our belts. Opt-in email appends have been very successful in delivering highly responsive subscribers without the headaches and pitfalls associated with opt-out appends. However, the challenge is in getting a significant number of people to convert on these outbound email invitations.
Success in converting opt-in email appends involves defining your value proposition. It involves having a compelling reason for subscribers to register--selling your program to the prospective subscriber. All of which is based in the bedrock of marketing success... a good strategy combined with strong campaign execution.
Once you have your strategy for enticing prospective registrants, follow the steps outlined in my previous post about opt-in email campaigns.
The thing that clients like about this approach is that they only pay for emails that are likely to perform. It can take a while to get past the reality that this is not going to add a million email addresses to your list, but that shouldn’t be the point. There are only two business models that can drive revenue from an unresponsive email address—list brokers and email append vendors. By working with these providers on opt-in programs, you eliminate waste and ensure that you will get email addresses of real, live people that are likely to respond.
Yes, this puts a premium on the associated costs and makes pricing more complicated. Don't expect to pay $0.50 per email address acquired through an opt-in append. Things like the loyalty of people on your house file, the strength of the call to action, the size of the input file, and anticipated conversion rates may be considered in determining costs. But at the end of the day, this is in the best interest of the client as it avoids the issues typically associated with opt-out email appends and the overall quality is much, much higher.
The Silver Bullet?
Companies looking at email appends are typically looking for a fast and efficient way to grow their lists. Don’t buy into the promises of a quick and easy solution to grow your list. To be completely cliché “If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.”
Done right, email appends can be effective—but they still take time, careful planning, good execution, and financial resources. It is not the silver bullet that most people imagine when they latch on to email append as the solution to their list growth woes.
- Done wrong, as is the case with opt-out email appends, we have found that these initiatives are more time and cost intensive as other list growth tactics.
- Done right, in the case of opt-in email appends, we have found these initiatives to be at least as time and cost intensive as any other list growth tactics.
Given this reality, 9 out of 10 times, I prefer to invest the same time and resources into other proven list growth methods. A couple consistent winners are:
- Make sure that there are compelling opportunities to register for email throughout your website. This is basic, basic stuff… START HERE.
- Integrate search campaigns with email registration. Search campaigns should be integrated with email registration efforts. Capturing email addresses on landing pages is the first step. Aligning the call to action on your landing pages with specific search campaigns is the second step. For example, visitors from brand keywords should get a different call to action than visitors from direct in-category keywords or competitive keywords.
- Integrate with offline efforts. Provide an incentive as part of your existing direct mail or print advertising efforts to register with your company online.
- Partner co-registration. Find like minded companies that you can cross promote. You include a signup space on their page and vice versa.
- Tradeshows are huge for B2B marketers. This is no secret, but there is often a significant effort involved in collecting all those business cards and then getting those contacts to opt-in to your program. Do the due diligence and get these systems in place.
Hats off to ExactTarget agency partner, Customer Portfolios for the terrific work they are doing to help Dunkin’ Donuts roll out its new Dunkin’ Perks™ customer loyalty program.
As reported by Amy Johannes in the January 23rd online
As reported by Amy Johannes in the January 23rd online edition of PROMO P&I, Dunkin’ Donuts will use permission-based email to keep customers enthused, engaged, and most importantly . . . coming back to its stores and its website to take advantage of special offers.
In the article, Joahannes notes that customers who opt-in for the Dunkin’ Perks program will receive e-mails twice a month with product news, store locations and special in-store and online offers. Members get offers throughout the year specific to their local market.
David Tryder, Dunkin’ Donuts manager of interactive and relationship marketing said, “We want to continue building relationships with our customers by sending them targeted communications and offers.”
Localized Promotion
One of the things I like about this program is that many of the promotions Dunkin’ Donuts sends will be specific to the Dunkin’ Perks™ member’s geographic location. I think franchise owners will love this! As I am reminded when I click on the “Perks FAQs” menu item (See My Perks Profile page below), “It's the easiest way for Dunkin' Lovers to keep up to date with everything happening at Dunkin'.”
And just in case a consumer needs help finding a Dunkin’ Donuts store where they can get their DD fix, a handy store locator makes it easy for me to find one.
The Dunkin’ Perks™ program was piloted in
As to how the one-to-one marketing program works, Godfrey said, “As customers use their Perks card, all transaction data is captured so we know what they are spending per visit, how often they are visiting their Dunkin’ Donuts store, and at what time of day they are visiting. This enables us to target customers with relevant, just out of reach offers. When customers change their behavior, they are rewarded. Everyone is happy. To that end, we consistently see over a 50% open rate for Perks’ emails!”
Godfrey added, “To ensure customers become accustomed to receiving and recognizing their regularly scheduled Perks email, all emails carry the same subject line: Dunkin' Perks Alert.”
The Agency Behind the Dunkin’ Perks™ Program
Customer Portfolios is the agency behind successful database marketing programs for many brands including Johnston & Murphy, Hat World/Lids, Unicef, World Travel Holdings, and Baskin-Robbins. The firm’s “Lights-Out Marketing” solution enables organizations to execute highly targeted and triggered email marketing programs that are based on such specifics as the customer's segment, life cycle stage, and purchasing behavior.
If you’re like me, maybe your resolution this year was to not have a resolution. I swore off resolutions a few years ago – the year after I resolved to run a marathon (accomplished!) but realized in doing so that my resolutions were in fact things that should be an integral part of my life: Keep active. Keep learning. Maintain a work / life balance. Together, those things comprise the big picture “life foundation.” And I’ve found that if I focus on living it, all the little things fall into place – sometimes effortlessly, and sometimes with a lot of work.
Email marketing is no different. Last year, when I started working with our email program, I set out resolutions like “get a 15% click-through rate” and “implement a testing schedule” and “lower our unsubscribe rate.” Sound familiar? While we were able to achieve them, we were missing the big picture. The why we needed to accomplish those goals is just as important as the goals themselves. Our own email program “big picture” is:
- Customer Retention
- Lead Conversion
- Brand Awareness
From here, it’s easy to identify the areas we can improve on (and relate them back to our broader vision). For 2008, our goals are:
- Analytics and Metrics
- Building Better Lists
- Automation
These may seem basic – but that’s exactly the point. By boiling it down into the key areas to improve, we can prioritize where to put our efforts. The critical part is knowing what we’re working for, and then establishing actionable milestones that will be steps in the right direction.
You might notice something missing from the goals above. Specifics. Yep, I know they’re gone, too. But things like “run reports on email performance” and “implement web analytics tracking” and “add 20% more subscribers to our list” aren’t goals – they’re actions. They should be recorded and executed on appropriately…but to me, they set the bar too low. If we know one of our goals is building a better list, for example, then adding more subscribers becomes just one piece of a bigger puzzle.
So this year, you’ll notice a renewed focus on the foundations of email marketing – planning, design, deliverability, list quality, etc. To help you strengthen each area of your own program, we’re adding a new section to your InSight Newsletter called “Back to Basics.” Each month, we’ll focus on one area for you to improve – and deliver a brand new type of resource to help you take action.
It’s no coincidence that next month’s focus is “Building a Better List,” so stay tuned! In the meantime, I’d encourage you to register for a new webinar offered by our extremely talented Account Management team, and to sound off on what your 2008 email marketing “big picture” is.
Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications
It was the 1990s, and a young Angel Morales had just created an integrated email strategy for one of the nation’s largest direct-to-consumer enterprise solutions (Sigma). I was so proud of it: my solution included integrated merchandising, automated remarketing, graphical transactional emails, etc. It was an outstanding set of features…but little did I realize that it wasn’t a “solution.” That was a lesson I learned the hard way during my first pitch…
Terrifying doesn’t begin to describe sitting across from a hardened CMO with two decades of direct marketing experience, who at the conclusion of my “super cool flash presentation” said “Yeah, all that technology is great but tell me how…”
- I can drive my highest value catalog customers to the website instead of the call center
- I can extend the lifecycle of my customers by 10%
- I can bolster my average order value and engineer my high value customer into brand champions
- I can recognize my at risk customers and retain them
- I can extend the value of my loyalty program into email
- I can leverage data appends to prospect new segment within my existing house file
THAT was the day I realized the value of email wasn’t in the technology, but in applying the technology to traditional DM principles. While working at Sigma over the next seven years, I learned from the best… companies like Sears, Eastbay, specialty merchants like Zip Products, Chaparral Racing, Nancy’s Notions, Woodcraft Supply Corporation, and countless other merchants. These companies – whose direct business was far more substantial than anything “online” – made me adjust my thinking and my approach to email. And it was, quite frankly, a humbling experience.
So fair readers, before we dive into ExactTarget’s new transactional eMail, mobile messaging, and other valuable (and cool) technology, let’s take a step back to basics and MAKE SURE we are using our rich customer data (such as RFML) to its fullest extent. We all have this data, but whether or not we use it is another matter…
- Are you deploying dynamic content/promos to reduce costs of retention? Remember that not every customer needs / deserves our best offers!
- Are you using segments to target and send to disengaged customers?
- Are you using previous purchase activity to align successful historic promotions to new promotional emails (I respond better to free shipping than 5% off)
- Are you using dynamic subject lines in conjunction with dynamic content to align the message to the micro-masses?
Not only is this the foundation of direct marketing, it’s also the foundation for next-generation web analytics strategies. In other words, we all have to build from the basics.
Remember, yesterday’s challenges are today’s excuses – and that’s largely all they are. With ExactTarget’s Fall 2007 Release, we made it easier than ever to integrate. WE host the data store, WE manage the import process, WE can automate data updates…all you need to do it to throw a file out onto an FTP directory (something a good “geek” can accomplish in a few hours!)
Executing on direct marketing basics will result in sizable program impact. Interested? LET’S TALK! Send me an email and I can quantify program impact using the metrics you already have in house. So let’s see how “going back to basics” bolsters your bottom line.
The hoopla has started to calm down, but the impact of the iPhone is becoming crystal clear now. The battle between Apple and RIM is shaping up. B2B marketers hoping that business users are only using Blackberries need to take note. Optimizing your email for mobile rendering on the Blackberry is not going to be the long term answer.
Furthermore, other smartphone manufacturers continue to release phones that seem to be a direct response to the iPhone. Samsung's F700 and the LG Voyager are just a couple of the more notable recent releases.
It seems that iPhone’s full support of HTML on the web and email has fundamentally changed the definition of “mobile internet.” Where users had grown accustomed to having limited functionality on their mobile devices, the iPhone responds with a clear message, “you don’t need to settle.” iPhone delivered a user-friendly experience that makes huge strides (however imperfect) toward providing a web and email experience that mimics a traditional computer.
Whether or not Apple caught the other manufacturers off-guard or not is a moot point now. Fact is, that many of the leading mobile manufactures, such as Nokia, Samsung, and Ericsson had joined the dotMobi bandwagon prior to the iPhone release. The folks at Apple recognized error of the dotMobi approach, which essentially creates two distinct online worlds--simultaneously creating both a fractured marketing experience and administrative nightmares associated with running parallel sites. Instead, Apple developers facilitated access of the traditional web and email on a mobile device... and by doing so, set a new standard.
In bypassing the dotMobi movement, Apple has done a service to all online and email marketers by creating demand for mobile devices that have full internet functionality, and by showing that it is possible. Email marketing professionals should praise this accomplishment. I believe it is a critical first step toward a solution to the current challenges associated with mobile email rendering.
Initially, I let it slide. I even got interested in doing some last minute online shopping today and clicked through on a link in today's email from Sam's Club. I did my shopping and at checkout I was faced with the following, oh so friendly (yet somewhat expected) message: "You must be a logged in member to purchase." Well, you guessed it, this means becoming a member of Sam's Club, membership fees and all.
What I don't get is why? Of course, I understand how Sam's Club works, but I am a Costco member. I don't want to pay another membership fee to Sam's Club. My why refers to WHY engage in such horrible practices?
- Sam's Club started emailing me without my permission
- WalMart shared my data in (seeming) violation of their own privacy practices
- I am not a Sam's Club member, it seems like they should have checked into that first
- Sam's Club won't let me buy online without becoming a member of their club
- Why put both brands at such risk??
There is a lesson here for the rest of us. The allure of a "bigger list" is always looming. Companies often see taking on their sister companies' lists as one way of growing their list. This is what Sam's Club apparently did, they simply took the WalMart list and called it their own without ever asking me if this was what I wanted. If this is something you are considering, know that lack of planning around three areas is likely to get you in trouble:
- Do the people you are bringing into your program from a sister company WANT to be in the program? Simple solution... run an opt-in campaign. Tell the people you are inviting how you got their name, what you plan to offer them, and ask for positive opt-in.
- Does the audience you are inviting even make sense? Sam's is sending me emails and I can't even buy from them until I become a member. In other sceanrios I have seen, the target demographics of the two sister companies are completely different... why send email to people who aren't likely to (or worse... can't) buy your products. It is a ROI loser!
- Don't violate your own privacy policies. CAN-SPAM is one thing, violating your own stated policies is, at minumum, a PR nightmare waiting to happen. At worst, it is a legal nightmare.
As for Sam's Club and WalMart. You need to update your privacy policy... especially if you want my trust as you so emphatically claim in your privacy policy:
We realize that making purchases at Walmart.com, or any other web site, requires trust on your part. We value your trust very highly, and pledge to you, our customer, that we will work to protect the security and privacy of any personal information you provide to us and that your personal information will only be used as set forth in this Policy. This includes your name, address, phone number, email address, and credit card or checking account information, in addition to any other personal information that can be linked to you, personally.
Welcome to 2008, where the “build” and “features” collide to create solutions. Here at ExactTarget, 2008 should be an explosive collection of solutions for retail – led by our client’s business objectives and leading industry trends. Over the next several weeks, I will be posting a flurry of solutions as part of a series on our Retail Email blog.
These will include solutions for:
Hidden treasures of web analytics
Automating abandoned basket emails
Automating check-out abandonment emails
New product alerts by product category (email and mobile)
Price drop alerts (email and mobile)
“In-Stock” notification alerts (email and mobile)
Advanced merchandising powered by SLI Systems, Endeca, Mercado, Celebros
Advanced cross selling powered by Certona, Aggregate Knoweldge
Pragmatic transactional email
Frequency capping by email intent
These programs used to be nearly impossible to execute for ANY Email Service Provider. So what’s changed? After a decade working with software companies (many of which were SaaS predecessors) I’ve noticed that there are two types of years: ”build” years and “feature” years. At ExactTarget, 2007 was one of those rare years in history where “features” and “build” happen simultaneously.
As a “feature" year, it was noteworthy with lots of new “stuff” hitting the ExactTarget application, including enhancements to our:
- Dynamic merchandising solution – Point our application to your website and we’ll syndicate products, cross sells, more.
- Outstanding usability enhancements – Our award winning usability was taken to an even further extreme by streamline your ability to edit content in the context of the email itself
- New transactional email capabilities – All of the power of the ExactTarget email creation process, but with a convenient “single console” for marketers
- And a collection of features far too numerous to mention here!
But a “build year” is just as important. It’s a year where we take a look at our architecture, our business model, our services organization and say “Will it support our vision for the future?” Those of you who attended our user conference this fall got a glimpse of just how important that question is to ExactTarget, resulting in:
- A new data center in Las Vegas – This monster data center is up and running in a hot capacity. This makes ExactTarget the premier ESP when your email is mission critical.
- Significant database re-architecture – It’s not just about performance, it’s about freedom. From the ability to refresh segments that impact over 8 billion subscriber (last weeks stats), but enhanced security and flexibility
- Unparallel support for custom data — Your world is more than lists of subscriber. My merchants have complex products relationships, web analytics data, transactional data (from brick and mortar, call center, online, etc). In what is a remarkable effort, our product team put COMPLETE CONTROL of data into the hands of our customers.
- Support for mobile messaging, voice and RSS were released this year — Moving ExactTarget from the one-to-one emails of today and towards the one-to-one messaging of tomorrow.
The foundation laid in 2007 is sure to result in 2008 being a stellar year! This is why you will see more innovative solutions from ExactTarget than ever before (and more than any other ESP). The end result will be more sales, to more customers, more frequently…
Friday - I like mine blackened - with some blue cheese crumbles.
While I have never been able to appreciate the comradary that waiting outside a Wal-Mart at 3:57 in the morning can produce, I would imagine it would be a lot like being in combat, which is why I don't do the "Gigantic, After-Thanksgiving Super Sale Blow Outs." A fear of a flaming, crushing death presided over by Earl, the Wal-Mart greeter. That is why I LOVE on-line shopping...and it looks like many of your customers do as well.
Online sales numbers were up a startling 41% over last year’s $174,000,000 to provide a whopping $250,000 worth of spending by 13,300,000 on-line shoppers. Oddly, spending through brick and mortar actually dipped 3.5% - illustrating that crushing, flaming "death by shopping" may be waning in popularity.
Holiday ecommerce Report - Week 3
The week of Thanksgiving saw some pretty outstanding numbers for ExactTarget customers:
You collectively sent over 315,000,000 emails (of which I received half of at my Yahoo address...);
You executed over 4,000,000 transactional emails;
You executed segment/group refreshes that impacted 8,000,000,000 subscribers (that's billion...with a "B");
It's numbers like this that justify our addition of a hot co-located data center (launched this year), one of the reasons why the über geeks over at Microsoft have been blogging about our architecture since 2005 and why Microsoft and ExactTarget have collaborated to enable email in their CRM offering.
SEND ME YOUR BLACK FRIDAY / CYBER MONDAY stories! I'm looking for fun, exciting, or terrifying tales that I can compile into an annonymous "Absolute Best and Worst of Black Friday". Winners, chosen at random from all submissions, to receive a 72” Kablakistan Plazma TV.
If it’s been awhile since you visited our case study library, now’s the time.
We just added a cool feature called an “easy access form” that will change the way you interact with our website – for the better!
Background: Our Marketing Team spends a lot of time researching what resources our clients need to improve their email marketing programs. We particularly enjoy sharing our client’s success stories through user-friendly, engaging case studies that are available for download through the resources section of our website. If you’re an existing customer or a newbie to the email marketing world, check out our 14 exciting case studies (including the newest ExactTarget CaseStudy featuring CareerBuilder.com) and learn how to optimize your email marketing program from marketers who have been there and done that.
If you visited our site in the past, you probably had to complete the same form every time you wanted to download a case study. Annoying, right?
We agree. That’s why we just added an “easy access form” to our case study page. Let’s take a look on what’s going on behind the scenes:
1. You submit your email address, tell us how you heard about us, and click “submit.”
2. A script calls the API and checks to see if your email address already exists in our CRM database.
3. If you already exist in our CRM system, you’re done. No more forms. A triggered email is automatically sent from the Marketing Team’s Enterprise Edition with a link to the case study you requested. (Screen1)
4. If our system doesn’t recognize your email address, you’ll be asked to fill out a few other pieces of information before downloading a case study. But remember, this only happens once. The next time you visit the site to download a case study, our system will recognize you and save you the hassle of filling out another form! (Screen2)
How can this scenario benefit your own website visitors? With the launch of our Fall 2007 Release, ExactTarget now supports the ability to create microsites, which are HTML pages hosted by our system. That means you can now combine web forms and email campaigns (both of which are tracked in one application) and immediately see results from inside your email marketing program. How cool is that!
Next up: “Easy access forms” for whitepapers – stay tuned!
Michael Mehrmann
Manager, Web Development
Not for you, analytics amateur
The purpose of this posting isn’t to talk about adoption, it’s not to discuss the fact that many organization who have purchased analytics solutions aren’t using them, it’s not to point out the fact that if you are involved in on-line commerce you should have a dedicated web analytics resource (at least part time). This is an article for the rest of you.
Many of my retail brethren “get it”. You are looking at your reports…you are deciphering the difference between top product viewed and top product purchased, you are looking at and optimizing cross sell placement within your product detail pages, you are calculating GROAS on your search marketing spend. In short, you are turning your investment in analytics into a finely tuned money making machine. This posting is for you…because even you, my high end web analytics gurus – adopters and embracers – have one more step left…an opportunity tucked away in the minds of the industries big gun consultants, concepts usually reserved for those willing to pay top dollar to take their business to another level.
Before we understand where we are going, let’s look at where we have been. Like the first fish that flopped its way onto land, sprouted legs, and walked off to launch the Starbucks brand, Web Analytics is evolving. In just 6 short years web analytics has gone from being a tool that simply counted visitors and hits, into being the life blood for many merchants.
If you haven’t looked at web analytics solutions lately, you will be shocked. I have clients using web analytics to do product demand analysis, support product soft launches, assess ALL acquisition efforts (across the web, print, radio, tv), I’ve even got one customer who has laid their web analytics solution over their data warehouse to leverage cross channel purchase activity in the context of their web analytics strategy (or visa-versa). They can even count how many hits they had to their homepage!! (yes, that’s a joke. The jokes are bad, but at least there are a lot of them).
Welcome to the Galapagos – here is your long tail
The most important result of web analytics Darwinian transformation from basic reporting into complex data analysis was the move from aggregate level reporting into a visitor centric data model. Meaning, web analytics (starting with Omniture) started building a “visitor database”, where profiles started to be generated on individuals, persona’s started to take shape, and suddenly it wasn’t simply about “what” was happening on your site, it was “who” did that “what”.
The other players in the space have all begun to catch up. Every major analytics platform can now tell me that a specific person saw a specific product, on a specific date, and that they added it to their basket, but didn’t purchase. The volume of data is great, but how do we bridge the gap between insight on the individual level, and the action that we should be taking?
We must first understand the data. The most critical thing to keep in mind is that while web analytics data is amazing valuable, it is by design limited in it’s visibility. Huh? Alright, most of you reading this are multi-channel…you have an extensive print operation, brick and mortar storefronts, you have loyalty programs, you have a lot of data. This is where your understanding of your shopper’s TRUE LIFETIME VALUE resides. It’s the fact that despite the fact that Leslie purchased $3,000 worth of product on-line last year, she returned $2500 worth of it and called customer server 36 times. Your web analytics platform will have her flagged as a high value customer, but you know better.
We’ve been dating for a while, let’s get engaged
So, what is the value of web analytics? Engagement. Say it one time with me…E-N-G-A-G-E-M-E-N-T! When someone visits your website, it’s for a reason, they have become engaged with you due to a product you carry, a promotion you are running, or brand loyalty. Your job, Mr./Mrs. Retailer, is to use the fact that your customer has contacted you and to take an action (not literally contacted you, figuratively – a metaphorical “contact” based on the customer electing to visit your site). Action is the key…action is where the dollars are hiding. To define action, you guessed it, we are going to look to the data.
Recognizing that your website is a vehicle for not simply transactional process, but shopper engagement, let’s look towards the data we should be exploring:
|
Data Point |
What are we looking for |
What does it mean to you |
|
Cart/Basket |
We want to see not only who abandoned, but who purchased. As importantly, what was in the basket/cart |
Re-marketing fodder, a chance to put product back in front of customers/visitors in a relevant manner based on conversion. |
|
SKUs |
What were the top viewed SKUs for non-purchasing shoppers? |
With the Cart/Basket abandonment we have identified the “who” we are targeting, the details give us the “what” are we going to put back in front of them. |
|
Categories/ |
What were those top viewed department or categories? |
If I’m not putting a product in front of engaged customers, I’m putting a category. |
|
Value Added Pages |
What value added pages were viewed? Did they view my loyalty program? |
Identify the level of engagement with my brand, customer looking at ship tables, customer service pages, loyalty programs pages carry a higher level of engagement with my brand..and are inherently more valuable. |
|
Acquisition Source & key words |
Where did they come from and what drove them to my website. |
If they showed up to my website from Google looking for Nike Running Shoes, what product should I put in front of them to make the buy? |
|
More |
This is a primer…a blog posting, not a book. |
Hmm…maybe I should write a book? Marketing strategies in free form prose, or haiku… |
So…now that you’ve identified the data, what are you going to do with it? Most web analytics solutions can create a feed.
Feed (Fe-ed verb)- A process resulting in an export of scenario driven data that includes all in the table above, in addition to any information that may have ever been captured about that customer in an conversion process (capturing an order, email sign up, catalog request, contest entry).
Your job? Turn the feed into dollars…so let’s assume that the web analytics company is going to push this data into an eMail Marketing Solutions provider, like ExactTarget. Hey – imagine that…using ExactTarget as the example….hmmm….must mean we already support this!
Bringing a knife to a gun fight
I had the privilege of consulting with a major electronics retailer on their remarketing strategy…their goal was very simple. Put the SKU that the customer was most engaged with, but did not purchase, back in front of them in a monthly email promo.
The email itself was pretty simple. It featured a large primary offer section (free shipping, yadda) and a grid of 8 products below it. Now, this retailer’s strategy was to be a little sly…using dynamic content (a process in which content optimizes itself for the intended recipient)– the email would include product that aligned to general interest capture as demographic data (I like computers and digital photography – I’ll see new cameras photo printers, and multi-media laptops). However one of these 8 featured products was special.
The featured product on the far left was using a new technology called Content Syndication (or Dynamic Merchandising - for our retail clients), which allows me to reach out to the customer website and request a specific product for a specific customer. In this case, the request was very dynamic. If the customer was a new customer (not in the DB as a converted customer – showing as a $0 customer), I would request content that included the SKU and a promotions code good for a 10% discount. The website would return the product, with strike through pricing illustrating the discount, and hard coded message “Hurry, supplies are limited”. If the customer was an existing customer, no promotion code was carried and the targeted product displayed with standard pricing. In either situation if the product was NLA or back ordered, the SKUs would be replaced with a default SKU.
UPDATE: This is one approach of about 6 unique strategies for product inclusion in remarketing emails. Other approaches are far more subtle, others overt…all have merit. Your formula for success is based on your market, your segmentation strategy, and a hand full of other variables.
Is that sorcery…some kind of Voodoo?
No, simply technology. This uses a process that ExactTarget developed called Content Syndication. It allows merchants to use their existing website logic to push products, categories, search results and much more into an email.
Many merchants use Content Syndication to put cross sells into emails, or to power marketing managed transactional emails…really almost anything you want to accomplish. There are some merchants who no longer worry about putting product into their email at all, allowing Content Syndication to reach out to your website to pull an “email specials” department directly …and best of all…your design and product availability rules are all maintained.
The take away?
This is an example (one of 30) on how leveraging data in your web analytics solution, combined with your eComemrce platform, and a robust email solution can be used to dynamically include highly targeted product within your email strategy. The key concept being - don’t guess about what product your customers are interested in, when your customer are telling you every time they visit your website. Remember that your web analytics platform will tell you EXACTLY what products they interested in and, using qualitative/quantities SKUs level analysis, will tell you how interested in those product I am.
And YES…you can do this. Virtually every merchant can. Data feeds are largely supported by virtually every web analytics solution.
Fair and Gentle Reader,
I was recently invited to present on the Masters of Business Online "Get Your MBO" conference in Indianapolis on December 7, 2008. It promises to be something unique...a combination of presentation and discussion around the disciplines that make the web tick. I'm anticipating something between the intimacy of Gary Angel's OUTSTANDING Semphonic sponsored Analytics Xchange conference and some of the more action laden sessions from this year's Internet Retailer Palm Springs. My topic du jour - Web Analytics.
When we look at Web Analytics and thought leadership, Eric Peterson has given us his RAMP - a process for web analytics success. We also have the Web Analytics Association headed by Jim Sterne, providing a host of best practices and on-going research on reporting, vendors sponsored blogs such as (Omniture's) Matt Belikin's blog, and the small list of analytics elites including Aaron Gray, Daniel Shields, Judah Phillips, Avinash Kaushik, and a host of other top rated blogs.
So, what is new to say about analytics? What is an "email guy" doing talking about web analytics anyway? Simple - it's not about email....it's not about analytics...it's about the solutions. As a long time web analytics practitioner and architect, I've never worked with a client whose goals have really been "reporting," but rather the insight that the reporting enables. So with that...I will NOT be talking about web analytics and the incorporation of voice-of-the-customer, I will NOT be talking about Persuasion Architecture via extension of digital asset modeling, there probably won't even be mention of "hits are for twits" in the world of reporting.
My MBO Presenation Outline (below) focuses on UNDERSTANDING the role that web analytics can play in your organization - helping you to understand how the evolution of the industry has fragmented the kinds of tools available, and to help you understand which of these tools you should be exploring to help you realize opportunity that you may not even know exists.
- Analytics - Understanding your needs
- Organizational appetites - driving analytics hunger
- What are your goals (long term/short term)
- 3 Basic buckets of need/opportunity
- Reporting - what's happening
- Analysis - why is it happening and to whom
- Solutions Enablement - what we are going to do about it
- Reporting
- It's not analytics, it's reporting
- Vendors and Tools - what you should look for
- Free tools are never free
- Getting the value
- Implementation - get it right
- Staff - Web Analytics Admin
- KPIs - to live by
- Analysis
- It's not reporting, it's analytics
- Vendors and Tools - what you should look for
- It's going to cost you...
- Getting the value
- Implementation - it never ends
- Staff - Web Analytics Practitioner
- KPIs to die by
- Solutions
- Solutions Enablement
- Beyond analysis, it's a solution
- Solutions Examples (with some real world examples)
- Automated Re marketing (abandoned check out)
- Call Center Integration
- Automated Content Targeting
- Offer optimization
- It's going to cost you...once
- Getting the value
- Implementation - get it right
- Partner Selection
- Accountability
This isn't anything new - but yet it is. This is the high level conversation that I've had with the 30+ clients that I've engineered web analytics integrations/implementation for. More often than not...this conversation is never had organizationally, which often times results in unrealistic or misunderstood expectations (in terms of objectives, results, staff requirements, more). Attendees will learn the right questions to ask of their vendors, their partners, their executives and themselves - in order to realize their ultimate business objectives.
For more information on attending, click here.
To get the ExactTarget discount rate, please email my friend Jim Brown, one of the events hosts.
