• "Your website can no longer be a digital brochure, it has to be an engaging place where you can drive conversion," said Joel Book, ExactTarget's Director of eMarketing Education.
  
• "It's time to stop reacting and start taking a pro-active approach to your marketing campaigns," said Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget's Vice President of Agency and Search Marketing.
  
• "If I receive an email and I don't know who it is, I immediately delete it, so why would we expect our customers to be any different?  I received an email from Continental on my phone that was mobile friendly and I was able to check-in just by replying to a text message - now that's engagement," said Jeanniey Mullen Founder of the Email Experience Council (eec) and Global Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Zinio Systems and VIV Magazine.

The highlight of the day for me was listening to Nick Godfrey, from Customer Portfolios (an email marketing agency partner with ExactTarget) discuss how his company utilized ExactTarget's email marketing software to build Dunkin' Donuts' loyalty program from the ground up.  He talked about the unique challenges of creating a 1 to 1 marketing customer loyalty program. 

A Dunkin' Donuts customer can receive rewards depending on how many times they visit a specific Dunkin' Donuts store each week.  As an example, if I go in Mondays and Wednesdays, the system is smart enough to trigger an email to that patron offering them a $1.00 credit towards the loyalty account, encouraging a third visit  This type of email marketing tool removes the time and budget burden most marketers are facing.

Shrinking budgets have led many marketers to search around for the best way to drive customers to their web site, but after attending this seminar, I realized that your marketing campaign must be engaging, and compelling, giving users a reason to come and stay on your site.  There is too much information out there for your message to get lost. 

My top four takeaways from Route 1 to 1:

• No more digital brochures - they don't work
• Give them a good reason to engage with your brand
• Truly powerful marketing will treat each customer as a unique individual, who has unique need
• Discussing Dunkin' Donuts leads to binge eating on my part

If you are a marketer like me, who knew what they wanted to do, but weren't sure how to do it, you really should think about coming to the ExactTarget Route 1 to 1: The new eMarketing essentials event.  Coming up next are Chicago and Cincinnati...its time to stop being a slave to our to-do lists. 

Gotta run, Dunkin' Donuts just opened here in Indianapolis and I want my free dollar. 

Todd McCall, PR Manager

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.

...um, hi.

I've officially returned from my blogging hiatus. I say that as if 5,000 of you previously hung on my every word, anxiously booting up your laptops over that morning cup of Brazil Ipanema Bourbon™ to read my blog.

Realistic assumption? Maybe not (though that'd be cool). Regardless, you have my apologies for the delay.

Luckily, I have some good excuses:

a) Wrote case studies and use cases galore
b) Went on a month-long safari in Denmark
c) Dove into college recruiting efforts
d) Helped launch our new email marketing design whitepaper

To win back your favor, I shall complete a 4-part series on the above. Starting now.

If you haven't checked out the ExactTarget Resources tab lately (or pinged your Account Representative for more info), you're missing out. The Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Case Study (Mr. Goodbar, anyone?) was released in the February edition of ExactTarget InSight Newsletter and is now available on the site. If you've struggling with multiple brands, profile centers, or cross-promotions, this story's for you.

Our new Use Case library is also expanding - but you need to request them from your Account Rep for now. These 2-page quick-reads illustrate specific business challenges and match them with the ExactTarget features and tools you can use to solve them.

- Kestler Financial Group
- Embry Riddle University
- Wild Birds Unlimited
- Indiana Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman
- Email Design for Lotus Notes

As you can tell, it's been pretty busy around here!

Tomorrow: Denmark.

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

The CRM 4.0 Launch Tour event in Atlanta was a packed house.  Approximately 200 people filled the seats to see and hear the latest on CRM and Microsoft.

The programming was similar to the Tampa event, but with new client studies.  The client study was hosted by Paul Kalella from Customer Effective and their client, Jamestown Properties, represented by Chuck Niswonger.  Changing the way data is collected and stored across Jamestown Properties was a phenomenal undertaking for Chuck.  The installation and leveraging of MSCRM allows for a stronger and different type of acquisition pipeline at Jamestown Properties.   The new way of leveraging data and the new process have brought tears to people’s eyes (literally) at Jamestown Properties.

Based on the large percentage of attendees with marketing roles, the demonstration and overview portion of the day went deeper into Marketing and Support tools in MSCRM.   The showcasing of the workflow ability inside of CRM definitely drew a positive response.

Well, Exact Target and I are off to MS Convergence (booth #206) to discuss how leveraging MSCRM workflows and ExactTarget email makes it a very powerful combination. 

Hope to see you at Convergence!!  More to come……

Craig Herman
Director, Global Partner Development – Microsoft

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  

Having multiple databases for subscriber information can be cumbersome when attempting to keep all your data up-to-date. Keeping lists clean and current is a common reason clients use the ExactTarget API.  Our API lets you update individual subscribers on a particular list, or you can update an entire list by using the API to kick off an import.

If it is a small set of subscribers that are being updated, the “single subscriber adds” or “subscriber edit calls” would suit you. This would allow you to update subscriber attribute values or even update subscriber’s status to unsubscribe. 

If you have a larger set of subscribers (as many of you do!) using a batch import would be the best option.  You can FTP the .csv or .txt file to the ExactTarget FTP location, and then use an API call to tell ExactTarget to import that file name into a particular list id.  You can also indicate the import type just as you can through the user interface: add and update new and existing subscribers, add only new subscribers, or update only existing subscribers.

Alternately, you can use the ExactTarget API to pull subscriber lists back in an XML format.  When pulling back a list of subscriber, the API lets you return all subscribers on that list, or to filter based on status.  For example, you can pull subscribers in an Unsubscribed, Undeliverable, Held, or Unsubscribed status, which is helpful if you have a different (or multiple) subscriber databases.  Pulling your subscriber lists out of our application means you can take advantage of ExactTarget’s powerful subscriber management tool and propagate that data across all databases for email marketing.  By automating these pushes and pulls to run daily (or weekly depending on email frequency) it will reduce the time needed to manually update your subscriber lists and help you stay Can-SPAM compliant.

No matter where your data is, the ExactTarget API can help you build, maintain and clean your subscriber lists.  And at the end of the day, that means you’re well on your way to building a better list.

Jessica Koch
Integration Consultant

When starting a new email marketing strategic planning engagement, we often rely on a combination of tools to help assess a client's value proposition.

What is working now: For established senders, we start by looking at historical results. What has worked in the past and what has not? What types of links draw the most traffic? Etc.

What is working for others in the space: This is where competitive intelligence tools come into play. 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 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.

Identify and validate key messaging components: Combining the learnings from the prior two steps, we come up with the key messaging components that appear to be on target for the client's audience. We then develop a survey around those key messaging components to validate which components subscribers want most.

Set the value proposition: The last step in the process is to codify the value proposition. Using all of the data gathered through these three steps, the key learnings are distilled into a single, straight forward value proposition that is used to guide future messaging and list growth initiatives.

There are several advantages to this approach... but the most compelling advantage is that it aligns your program with the expectations of your subscribers.  In a marketing channel where the subscriber rules... this is a huge step toward ongoing success.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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)
3. Track the frequency and cadence of competitors email programs. 
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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!

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.  ~John Wooden

I love that quote.  Philanthropy is so important−and I am continually impressed and inspired by leaders who have built the mindset of corporate philanthropy directly into their culture.  Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, has authored a couple books on the subject.  His book titled “The Business of Changing the World” is a great read and describes how Salesforce.com donates 1% of employee’s time, 1% of company equity, and 1% of sales via no-cost product for non-profits. 

At ExactTarget, we also strive to make a difference in our local community and communities around the world.  One of the ways we give back is through providing substantial discounts on our software and services to qualifying non-profit organizations.  In addition, we have a steering committee of dedicated and compassionate individuals who lead our local community and philanthropic efforts.  Around here, they’re commonly known as ExactImpact (Involving Members Passionate About Community Ties).

I had the pleasure of announcing the efforts of our ExactImpact group in 2006. This year, the summary list of accomplishments has grown substantially. Here are some of our 2007 highlights:

• January
-- Employees challenged each other to raise money for the Riley Change Angels event.

• February
-- 430 pounds of food were collected and donated to Gleaners Food Bank.

• March
-- 30 pints of blood were donated during an ExactTarget blood drive. (That’s enough blood to save 90 lives!)

• April
-- The “ExactBark-It” team raised money for Indianapolis animals in need during the Humane Society Mutt-Strut.

• July
-- An additional 30 pints of blood were donated by ExactTarget employees.
-- Approximately two boxes of school supplies per floor were collected for the Backpack Attack.

• August
-- Employees raised money to benefit the Gleaners Food Bank.

• October
-- Employees participated in the Light the Night Walk for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

• December
-- Five families (19 people, including 13 children) were sponsored by ExactTarget employees through the Christamore House. Gifts were purchased by ExactTarget employees, and a company raffle was held to raise additional money for the families.
-- A Wal-Mart gift card was also given to a local family devastated by a house fire.

Thank you to the many ExactTarget employees who have made a difference─both through personal contributions and countless hours of time.  We look forward to making an even bigger impact in 2008.

If you have suggestions on how ExactTarget can make a difference, please send an email to exactimpact@exacttarget.com.

There is a trend in the software industry to expose one’s core infrastructure via APIs to allow other businesses to leverage that infrastructure to build new applications.  Who is moving in this direction?  Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com all offer APIs that allow ISVs to leverage their infrastructure to develop applications on their platforms. 

ExactTarget Embedded is ExactTarget’s new product offering for developers and ISVs.  The ExactTarget Embedded web service APIs to allow ISVs to leverage our messaging and deliverability infrastructure to develop applications within or on top of their applications.  One can quickly get to market with less up front capital investment by building applications on ExactTarget’s suite of web services.  More importantly, letting ExactTarget manage the deliverability and back end process of sending email takes the burden off of development resources, freeing them up to work on other tasks.

Here is a summary of ExactTarget Embedded:
http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/partners_embedded_detail.aspx

ISVs both big and small are finding value in leveraging large capital investments made by ExactTarget and other software companies.  Here are some similar examples from Amazon, Salesforce.com, and Google:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3435361

Salesforce.com
http://www.salesforce.com/platform/

Google
http://code.google.com/more/#label=APIs&product=gdata

Sometimes it's necessary to focus on informing your subscribers, be it because of a product update or company news. On the whole, however, email marketing is all about driving action.

Make it easy for your subscribers to know exactly what you want them to do after reading your email. Are they supposed to register for a webinar? Schedule a product demo? Contact their account rep? Visit your website?

Email calls-to-action should be obvious. And they should be easy.

I just saw a great example from the Humane Society of the United States. The message asked me to support an upcoming U.S. Congress Farm Bill which would:

"...stop the importation of puppies from foreign puppy mills for commercial sale, strengthen the federal law against dogfighting, increase the maximum penalties for Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations..."

Great - I'm briefed. And I agree with supporting those initiatives. But what should I do now? HSUS tells me exactly what to do in a bulleted list: 

1. Contact my Senators and House Representatives. Ask them to support the bill. The email dynamically populated the contact information of my congressmen so I don't even have to look it up.
2. Send a follow-up email after my calls. The message included a link to a pre-made email form on the HSUS website. 
3. Tell family and friends (or ExactTarget blog readers!) about the bill by forwarding the email. A clear link allows me to quickly forward the message to spread awareness.

Though the email contains multiple calls-to-action, each is clear, concise, and immediate. HSUS informed me about the bill, told me exactly what to do about it, and provided the tools to make it as easy as possible for me to take action.

Are you doing the same for your subscribers?

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

The only thing I love more than puppies is marketing channel synergy.

Call me crazy, but I just love when companies use their websites, emails, advertising, PR, blogs and other marketing channels to deliver a coherent message. But, it's easier said than done. The guy who runs your website probably isn’t the same guy that handles your email program. And neither one designs your print ads or writes your corporate blog.

It’s hard to keep everyone on the same page, but it’s worth it. Talk to each other. Share messaging calendars. Coordinate product and website promotions. Your customers will notice if you show a little synergy. Take, for example, a recent email I got from the ASPCA. The message included a pitch for their online kids community – Animaland. (I know I’m not a kid anymore. But there were cartoon puppies involved, and they had me at hello.) The site offers fun information on top animal issues, newsworthy young advocates, and quick tips for our “four-legged, finned and feathered friends.” I clicked-through, and the first thing that caught my eye was the opening Flash piece. ADOR-able.

Animaland is also featured in multiple places on the ASPCA homepage – like under the program tab and in a cute call-out in the right-hand column. There are also several relevant press releases in the media archives from the Animaland launch in 2001 and its Gold Award announcement from the Parents’ Choice Foundation in 2004. Talk about synergy – website, PR, email, and more!

How convinced would you be if you got an email saying “HEY this is important!” but couldn’t find anything about the same topic when you looked at the company’s website? In press releases? Or corporate blogs? You might begin to question whether a) the message really IS important, and b) whether the company’s marketing team ever talks to each other. Send a consistent message across marketing channels, and you’ll look like rock-stars next to promotionally disjointed competitors.

But wait a minute, you say. Why would the ASPCA promote an online tool they launched six years ago – it’s old news! Shouldn’t email real estate be reserved for the latest and greatest? Not necessarily. While email is great for pitching a new feature, website, or offer, remember that many subscribers have entered your list since “Campaign X” launched. I opted-in for ASPCA emails in 2007 and had never heard of Animaland. Until the email popped into my inbox. As long as it makes sense with your email’s message, don’t be afraid to remind subscribers about all the great things you already offer. It might be new to them!

Nicole
Marketing Communications Associate

Ps – OK, truthfully, I love puppies more than marketing. But only by a smidgen.

The number one thing a marketer can do to ensure maximum email deliverability is maintain a good reputation. The vast majority of ISPs decide which mail to accept based on the reputation of your sending IP address. If you are sending mail to names outside of permission; if those recipients don’t expect to hear from you; if you’re continually mailing the same, tired old list for years; these and many other factors can drag down the email reputation of your IP address, increasing the chances of your mail going to the bulk folder (or being blocked outright).

What you’ll find new on this front in 2008 is that ISPs are clamping down more than they’ve ever done before. They’re automating their spam filtering and becoming faster on the trigger. They’re now blocking more quickly, and declining to unblock more often. They’re outsourcing more of their mail delivery choices to third parties. For example, comcast is working with Return Path.  And Yahoo now uses the Spamhaus blacklists.

That’s why it’s becoming more important than ever to proactively ensure maximum deliverability through adherence to permission. If you don’t, you could easily find yourself trapped in a deliverability quagmire that you can’t easily resolve – even though it’s a practice that you received no negative feedback about previously!

ExactTarget has excellent technical tools to help you maximize your deliverability. Our automated feedback loop processing, bounce mail management, and mail server fine-tuning all work together to get as much as your mail to the inbox as possible. Our dedicated deliverability services staff stands ready and waiting to reach out to ISPs as needed to help resolve issues. But, even with all of those steps, reputation and permission remain the true, primary governors of email deliverability success.

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…

Since 1999, I’ve spent roughly $21,042, consuming on average 1.2 iced venti, 5-espresso shot, skinny, café mochas per day at an average price of 6 dollars, including tip (wow, I hope my wife isn’t reading this).

This would make me a “high value customer” to Starbucks. Should I shudder off the shackles of my Starbucks overlords and start going to other coffee shops, or stop drinking coffee entirely, it would negatively impact Starbucks’ business and could contribute to the collapse of Columbia’s economy at large. So what would Starbucks do if I suddenly stopped buying coffee from them? Would they know?  Would they care? What should they do about it?

This is a prime opportunity for behavioral engineering based on predictive purchasing patterns.  Huh?  Meaning that Starbucks knows my purchase patterns and my value to their bottom line, so how do they get me back on track if I stray? How does Starbucks identify at-risk customers and get them back into their predictable purchase models?

First, Starbucks needs a loyalty program…something that tracks purchases, ideally through all channels. This provides data on time between purchases, be it 90 days, 9 days, or in my case, 90 minutes. Thus, we have “average latency.”

Next, Starbucks would want to QUALIFY that average latency, articulating that enough transactions have occurred to say that our average latency is valid (known as “frequency”). 

Finally, Starbucks would look at recency.  When was the last time I purchased?  If it was yesterday, that’s great.  Starbucks knows I should have purchased yesterday and I’m following my anticipated pattern.  I am consistent, predictable and profitable. 

What happens when I deviate from my pattern? At what point do I become an at-risk customer? If you had a customer who purchased from you consistently once a quarter for two years and has been silent for the last six months, would you want to reach out to them?  What if instead of one customer you were able to identify as at-risk, it was hundreds, thousands? Identification is half the battle. 

Once you’ve identified the at-risk customers, send them a message or offer that will re-engage them.  Sometimes this is an easy process, corresponding with shifts in your merchandizing mix. Sometimes it can be a bit more challenging (like leveraging a data append to identify your customers who may have moved). 

The message is simple once the reason for flight has been established. Starbucks might send a message featuring my favorite drink…something that reminds me “mochas are tasty…caffeine is good.”  If a customer moved to a different city, a list of Starbucks locations in their new neighborhood would be more effective. If the customer doesn’t return in a month…that’s when the big guns come out and an email with an imbedded coupon good for a free drink or a direct mail piece with a dollar-off gift card is sent.

Remember, your customers are exactly that…yours.  Your job is to KEEP THEM ENGAGED. Stretching the life of your customers, even just a few transactions, will have SUBSTANTIAL impact to your bottom line.  Think about you attrition rate, think about your AOV, and do the math…numbers don’t lie.

By strategically leveraging email, you can begin to shape, refine, and redefine what your traditional customer lifecycle looks like.  For ExactTarget customers, this capability is point and click…very little effort to execute very intelligent marketing.

And if anyone from Starbucks happens to be reading this…I’m pretty sure we can work a barter…world class email marketing software/strategy for one Starbucks franchise…in my living room.

Cheers,

AIM

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: 

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.

1. Analytics - Understanding your needs
   1. Organizational appetites - driving analytics hunger
   2. What are your goals (long term/short term)
   3. 3 Basic buckets of need/opportunity
      1. Reporting - what's happening
      2. Analysis - why is it happening and to whom
      3. Solutions Enablement - what we are going to do about it
2. Reporting
   1. It's not analytics, it's reporting
   2. Vendors and Tools - what you should look for
   3. Free tools are never free
   4. Getting the value
      1. Implementation - get it right
      2. Staff - Web Analytics Admin
      3. KPIs - to live by
3. Analysis
   1. It's not reporting, it's analytics
   2. Vendors and Tools - what you should look for
   3. It's going to cost you...
   4. Getting the value
      1. Implementation - it never ends
      2. Staff - Web Analytics Practitioner
      3. KPIs to die by
      4. Solutions
4. Solutions Enablement
   1. Beyond analysis, it's a solution
   2. Solutions Examples (with some real world examples)
      1. Automated Re marketing (abandoned check out)
      2. Call Center Integration
      3. Automated Content Targeting
      4. Offer optimization
   3. It's going to cost you...once
   4. Getting the value
      1. Implementation - get it right
      2. Partner Selection
      3. 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.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You’re an email marketer with a big campaign coming up. You create your email, import your subscribers, segment your list, etc. To make sure everything goes smoothly for the big send, you send test emails out beforehand to other members on your team for review, various domains, and hopefully even a testing tool like Pivotal Veracity. Everything works beautifully.

And then…something doesn’t work. Maybe you catch a typo the day after you hit the send button. Maybe your CRM integration doesn’t work quite as planned. Maybe someone else on your team mistakenly deletes a profile attribute you need, or you forget to add a Forward to a Friend button. Whatever the case may be, all those days of careful and cautious testing can go down the tube pretty quickly.

It happens to all of us. Evidence: a version of our October InSight was accidentally sent twice to a small group of subscribers. Ugh. While no one factor was to blame, looming deadline + miscommunication + technical issue + haste = embarrassing duplicate send.

We were lucky – the list was small, the impact was minimal, our metrics for the month were extremely strong, and InSight subscribers are a surprisingly forgiving bunch. Now that the smoke has cleared, it’s easy to see that this problem could have been prevented had our pre-send testing environment exactly matched our real send environment. So if you’re an email marketer, learn from our mistake. Here are some tips (a.k.a lessons learned) to help:

1. Your Test is Not a Test.
   Adding even one “untested” variable into the mix come send time can have serious repercussions. So treat your test like the real thing. Sending to an integrated list and a non-integrated group? TEST. Scheduling a send with a 15-minute throttle? TEST. Sending in Multi-Part MIME? TEST. TEST. TEST. Sending with various language encodings? Yep, TEST THAT TOO.
2. The More Eyes the Merrier.
   Send out your email to as wide of audience as possible for review. For example, we send out an “FYI” version of InSight to our entire sales and services teams 24-hours before we complete the send to our subscribers. Each month, I am surprised (and extremely grateful) for the feedback that comes in. I’d rather our internal teams point out a typo or a misdirected link than one of our subscribers (and they will!)
3. Put Yourself on Lockdown.
   We’ve recently started enforcing a 24-hour lockdown on our newsletter. This means that no matter what, the newsletter has to “sit” with no changes for a full 24 hours before we send it. This helps minimize last-minute changes that could be disruptive, and also provides more time for more eyes to review it. In fact, we’ve found this to be so helpful we’re looking to bump the lockdown up to 72 hours.
   
4. Balance Deadlines with Double-Checking.
   I’m a firm believer in deadlines. But there comes a point when, quite simply, you have to be flexible with deadlines in order to not compromise the integrity and validity of your tests. Know when to back off for the sake of your send. If that moment of hesitation flashes before you hit the send button, don’t do it! You should feel confident – not anxious – when you hit the send button.

If you have more testing / preparation tips to share, we’d love to hear them!

Cheers,
Ashley Sales
Manager, Marketing Communications

As a web developer, you tend to spend a lot of time online. As a web developer in marketing, you spend even MORE time online since you’re always looking for new ideas. Working on a corporate web page may limit the development of certain things, but you’re never limited on creative ideas!  Here’s one cool marketing tool I see more and more often on web pages to grab people’s attention. 

A great way to show that you are up-to-date on your webpage is to let your users see and know what they or others like / dislike. For example, on Flickr you’ve probably noticed a bunch of keywords served up in one spot based on peoples’ search. This collection of search keywords is called a "TagCloud".  But I call this a Web 2.0 enhancement!  Basically, a TagCloud is just a collection of good old meta tags bundled up and visualized to help your web page visitors to find what they looking for (or not looking for!).

Definition: "TagCloud is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud or text cloud."  Sounds impressive, huh? And it’s actually fun (and useful) to serve up dozens of links that are just waiting to get clicked and result in marketing action.



Want to try your own TagCloud for your webpage or email marketing campaign? You can get useful help at TagCloud - Generator


Michael Mehrmann
Manager, Web Development

ExactTarget was a silver sponsor at Microsoft Convergence EMEA in Copenhagen 2 weeks ago.  This was our first wide scale exhibition of our integration to the European market.  The feedback was ecstatic.  It did not matter the language that was being spoken....the dialogue was the same:  Email marketing is not as strong without leveraging the data and CRM is not as strong if it is difficult to act on the data.

Three days of these conversations got the international ExactTarget team excited.  The need for an integrated system that can send automated email campaigns from Microsoft CRM continues to grow as Dynamic CRM's reach continues to penetrate the market.  This comes on the heels of David Daniel from Jupiter Research's report on the status of the International Email Marketing Adoption.  One factor that David highlights in this report is the growth of email marketing in Europe is coupled by an increase of in-house systems.  One reason that we heard at Convergence was that people like the idea of having everything inside of one tool.  The integration of Microsoft CRM and ExactTarget gives everyone the power of CRM and targeted, email marketing in on user interface!

Exciting times indeed!!