Stamps for email: Goodmail, AOL and Email

My take on email stamps.

I have always had a problem with the misuse of email.   With email we have the greatest database marketing tool in the history of mankind and yet many marketers choose to abuse it as simply “cheap paper”.

In old fashioned marketing you focused on Reach & Frequency for success.   We all know this doesn’t work any more…and as we all know the marketers who are not being successful are using email as a cheap way to shout louder and shout more frequently.

The industry is in an uproar over the concept of having to pay for premium (guaranteed) delivery.   Why?  Probably because most have no way to determine the value of their email….or their ROI thresholds are so low that they can’t make any money on their Campaigns (you know I hate that word…and the concept behind it)

Remember that Jerry Maguire memo….fewer clients?  More personal relationships?   It got him fired, but he was right. 

The same is true for email…the success of our industry depends on less email and more investment in the relationship.   

I’m not endorsing anything specific here with Goodmail or the AOL program.   I can’t say if this will drive more success for our mailers that choose to participate and experiment with it.  But I’m not going to dismiss it out of had like so many have.   

The great thing about internet marketing is that it’s all transparent…it’s all measurable.   The goal of our clients is higher lifetime value…better relationships.   I’m willing to support experiments to see if having an email stamp helps this cause.

Comments

[Scott Burkey]

My hopes are that for legitimate, permission-based email marketers this will prove to be something that facilitates enhanced ROI, not increased costs only. But like anything else, it has to be executed properly. I'm keeping a close eye on it as well and don't want to dismiss it too quickly. Good post Chris.

[Sean Hecking]

Some good thoughts here Chris. If a company is truly doing their best to insure relevant, targeted communication, then there is no need for email stamps. People fixated on the "cheap paper" idea fail to see this tool as a means to build relationships. Unfortunately, like back in 2nd grade, a few misbehaving students ruin recess for the rest of us.

[Darcy Moen]

I recall another (but way more famous) Canadian said 'The medium is the message'.

Reach and frequency are not the key to success.

Marshall McLuhan hit the nail on the head with the theory that the channel will not supersede content in importance. Relevance was, is, and always should be the true measure of importance, and importance always will be the judged by the recipient.

I could care less about open rates, or how many hits a web page has, its the action and reaction of the recipient that matter.

Remember: 'SHOW ME THE MONEY!'

One would think 'Relevance for Idiots' would top the best seller list for months. :-)

Darcy Moen

[Tom Ptacek]

test

[Tim Whelan]

Interesting post and interesting comments, as a customer experience architect and consultant I can say I agree and then that I don’t? The issue is relevancy, but as the customer dictates it not as we perceive it. It is also relationships, but again in the terms the customer dictates, not in how we determine them. It is also found in the perceived need that the customer has and their perception of the brand to meet that need that the first two find their existence.
I agree traditional marketers as a whole haven't a clue as to what e-mail is or how to use it. And the rest of the e-mail industry that profess to have a clue hasn’t a clue about their clients and how to create a relationship outside of up selling to what they think their client needs are and relevancy is out of fairy tales.
The online marketing industry as a whole needs to redefine customer value and that relationship to real need. Then they need to redefine loyalty and the impact it has on the client’s perception of real relevancy. From what I just read (from all above) no one here understands this either except in terms of database efficiency. What is a relationship and what kind of experiences develop that relationship? How does that apply to brand loyalty? If there is loyalty, how do we strengthen it through experience management? Their needs to be some deep sole searching here I think. More likely it will be a learning curve, because everyone in the e-mail community not just traditional mass mailers is dealing with non relevant content and databases.
Chris I think you showed a small mirror of relevancy when you mentioned, if it’s not in Indianapolis leave me alone. That’s the point. Did anyone ever ask you if you really want to take a trip. Did they really care if you lived in Indianapolis? Do you really care about where your clients live? You see that’s the problem, its hard to care about relevant issues if they have nothing to do with what you’re trying to sell your client.
The problem with direct marketing i.e. e-mail is that most people only talk to their clients in terms that surround what they want from the client and that is a big problem because we still aren’t listening to them in their terms. Just because they opted in to a newsletter or product database doesn’t mean that they are expressing a need. It means they are just expressing an interest. There is a Big difference.
We express that opt in as relevance because they made a choice. We then poll them based on that choice. Then we continue to e-mail them based on the relevancy of that choice and the polls. Then we create an experience or groups of experiences based on what we did before to try and create both brand and customer loyalty. In the end we are back where we started. That is why we have aged databases and non relevant content.
The model of the newspapers is a good one. If we target our customers we actually will fall into the same trap because of justifying efficiency. If we do target individually we are still out lunch on relevancy, loyalty, real need and relationships.

[Tim Whelan]

Interesting post and interesting comments, as a customer experience architect and consultant I can say I agree and then that I don’t? The issue is relevancy, but as the customer dictates it not as we perceive it. It is also relationships, but again in the terms the customer dictates, not in how we determine them. It is also found in the perceived need that the customer has and their perception of the brand to meet that need that the first two find their existence.
I agree traditional marketers as a whole haven't a clue as to what e-mail is or how to use it. And the rest of the e-mail industry that profess to have a clue hasn’t a clue about their clients and how to create a relationship outside of up selling to what they think their client needs are and relevancy is out of fairy tales.
The online marketing industry as a whole needs to redefine customer value and that relationship to real need. Then they need to redefine loyalty and the impact it has on the client’s perception of real relevancy. From what I just read (from all above) no one here understands this either except in terms of database efficiency. What is a relationship and what kind of experiences develop that relationship? How does that apply to brand loyalty? If there is loyalty, how do we strengthen it through experience management? Their needs to be some deep sole searching here I think. More likely it will be a learning curve, because everyone in the e-mail community not just traditional mass mailers is dealing with non relevant content and databases.
Chris I think you showed a small mirror of relevancy when you mentioned, if it’s not in Indianapolis leave me alone. That’s the point. Did anyone ever ask you if you really want to take a trip. Did they really care if you lived in Indianapolis? Do you really care about where your clients live? You see that’s the problem, its hard to care about relevant issues if they have nothing to do with what you’re trying to sell your client.
The problem with direct marketing i.e. e-mail is that most people only talk to their clients in terms that surround what they want from the client and that is a big problem because we still aren’t listening to them in their terms. Just because they opted in to a newsletter or product database doesn’t mean that they are expressing a need. It means they are just expressing an interest. There is a Big difference.
We express that opt in as relevance because they made a choice. We then poll them based on that choice. Then we continue to e-mail them based on the relevancy of that choice and the polls. Then we create an experience or groups of experiences based on what we did before to try and create both brand and customer loyalty. In the end we are back where we started. That is why we have aged databases and non relevant content.
The model of the newspapers is a good one. If we target our customers we actually will fall into the same trap because of justifying efficiency. If we do target individually we are still out lunch on relevancy, loyalty, real need and relationships.

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