Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices

Notes from Marketing Sherpa Email Marketing Meeting

By Publisher Anne Holland

Welcome to the renaissance of email.

Email marketing is hot, hot, hot right now... and I'm not saying that because I just got back from MarketingSherpa's Email Summit in Chicago and I'm pumped with post-show fervor.

After three years of non-stop "search marketing rocks" focus, seems like the marketing world is taking a second look at its old pal email. And in 2006 email response rates are looking darned good.

It's not the tired email-is-dead 2003 world anymore. Junk mail didn't kill email the way most "experts" expected. Instead, the struggle to stay afloat in an ocean of junk made permission emailers much, much stronger.

In fact, seems like most attendees and speakers landed their current positions about 18 months ago and they've just revamped their organization's previously moribund email department. Now, armed with test results, cleaner templates, and automated systems, they're ready to take response rates to the next level.

You could call it Email 2.0. (In fact, I think I will.)

Read the whole story here.....

ExactTarget has some smart folks

ExactTarget has some smart folks, including its founder, Chris Baggott, and its recent addition to its “strategic services”, Morgan Stewart. And, as I’ve said before, I am ever more disappointed when smart people do not-so-smart things.

This guy makes some decent points about some of our industry studies, but he is dismissing the value of any learning that comes from macro level studies.  There is tremendous value in looking at macro-level information, there is also value in conducting controlled experiments.  We always advocate testing.  Macro level studies can not tell you what will work for your program.  Neither can case studies that highlight another company’s successes or failures.  The key is to learn from a variety of studies and spark ideas that help determine the things that you should be testing in your program.  Nevertheless, this is well worth the read:  http://www.nettakeaway.com/tp/article/212/if-you-cant-do-it-right-add-more-sample

brand advertising on the internet

I saw an interesting comment from my old friend Tony Ponturo, Vice –president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch. (actually, I only know him because I accosted him in an elevator once: your classic “elevator pitch”)

Anyway he was talking about brand advertising on the internet.

What struck me was this:

Their research shows that the target audience for them of 21-34 year olds spend 6 hours a week online…..up from compared to 10 minutes a decade ago.

But age as a demographic is not the whole story. They (AB) actually advertises on more than 25 different sites right now. Everything from Yahoo/AOL to Flavorpill.com to Univision. Online ads will account for 5% of AB’s ad spending budget…double the portion in 2005.

What does that mean to email marketing? I’m not sure. I’ve got to give Tony a call. What I will tell him is that advertising on the Internet goes beyond branding. You have the ability to create a value sharing dialog with your audience….use that web ad to drive engagement.

And to the Branding folks in general…take heed to the argument about list sizes shrinking. No more one size fits all. Tony’s 25 sites should probably drive at least 100 different versions of dialog. (probably more)

Politics & Email

There has been an huge increase in the use of email by Politicians.   This is both good and bad...it all depends on the email practices of the politician in question.   

At it's best, email is a fantastic way to drive relevant communications to constituents...no matter if you are a politician or a retailer.   The key is (as always) relevance coupled with permission.

The problem seems to be that a lot of politicians are utilizing the same tactics they do with the phone or with traditional direct mail: "Give me the list of all registered voters and I'll pound them" (They are politicians after all not database marketers)

I won't go into why this practice is bad, but I have been asked several times to suggest the best way for a politician to build a good email database.

In my mind there are two easy tactics that don't take any more effort than what they are doing already.

First, the personal appeal.   Politicians make a lot of appearances.   Create cards with information requests and have your volunteers pass them out at every appearance.   Offer a T shirt or something....explain your privacy policy along with what &  why you want to communicate to them.

Make sure you deliver what you promise (hmmmm...)

Have some check boxes so people can check what they might be interested in (phone calls, get out the vote programs, in home events, platform updates....)  The key is to make it feel participatory.  The key to Howard Dean's success wasn't Spamming it was engagement.

The second is simply leveraging your existing Direct Mail program.   You are sending me mail anyway.   Build a landing page around your mailer where I can learn more about the "Critical Issue" you are bringing to my attention with the mailer.   Make the goal of the mailer to visit the site.   

The great thing about this strategy is that your DM costs should go way down since you don't need to send me a big brochure, just the bare minimum to get me to the site.  We see a lot of this done with postcards....and because these save so much money per mailing you can send more or increase the frequency to the existing database.

Now you have got me to your site.  What's the goal here?  The opt in.   Give what you promised in the mailer, but make sure you have a very compelling offer for them to sign up to hear more.

Finally, there is the Viral aspect.    Make sure you devote a significant portion of your comunications to encourage your audience to forward the emails to others.    Let's face it; the folks who sign up are probably going to vote for you anyway....what you need to do is use these people to recruit others.

Web 2.0, Email Marketing and the role of ExactTarget

Coming out of the "Software 2006" conf. last week (among other things) was a fantastic report by McKinsey & Co along with Sand Hill Group called: Software 2006, Unifying the Ecosystem. So far my favorite paragraph is the following:

....Some of this growth will come from continued automation of transactions (which continue to make up 44 percent of labor activity in the United States), some from empowering “tacit interactions” – the judgment-based, highly collaborative interactions that account for more than 40 percent of workforce activity today in the United States (and similarly in other developed economies), but have not yet had substantial software-investment support.

Why this is germain to us has to do with the discussion in our industry of software vs. services and "Left Brain Marketing".   The goal is execution excellence and productivity.   

What do you think of the Stat that 40% of labor activity in the US is tied up in judgement-based, highly collaborative interactions?   Can anyone argue that there is an huge opportunity to automate at least some of this with easy to use software?

Why do marketers make it so hard on everybody?

Ok I just spent 20 minutes getting registered for www.mycokerewards.com.

Not a bad concept. Build loyaty by giving rewards for consuming the product. I wouldn't call it original, but I guess it's probably the first time applied to a big brand soda.

I got wind of this promotion during the Final 4 last week. Coke is jumping on the 'street marketing' bandwagon by having cards printed up with scratch offs that expose a number. Go to the site and enter the number and you get rewarded with points.

It's worked so far as it got me to go to the site. The problem was in the conversion process.

First, hat's off that they have a conversion process. I would not have been suprised if they didn't even bother with collecting my email address, after all nearly 95% of all web visitors disappear without a trace.

The problem here was the multi step "registration" was more like applying for a credit card than it was registering for a simple rewards program. Name, email, birthdate, address, opt in for email and text messaging (interesting that they never asked for my cell phone number; don't ask me how they plan on texting me)....oh three checkboxes for privacy, terms of use, etc.... and then one of those security things where you have to type the word you see.....

Uhhh....don't these coupons fall out of the newspaper every Sunday anyway? Why all the security now?

Of course the more complicated you make the form, the more opportunity I have to screw it up. I didn't get my retype password right the first time, forgot to check one of the three "Policy" boxes the second time and didn't enter the "secret word' (Pee Wee) in the right case the third time.

All in all it took me 20 minutes. I'm sure if I hadn't planned on blogging this experience I would have abandoned the process within about 60 seconds. I wonder how many people do?

But...we drink a LOT of diet coke in my house so lets see if this changes our behavior...or at least we can get rewarded for something we are already doing.......which of course is a whole marketing problem in itself. :-)

Anyway, I'll keep you posted and write when I earn my trip to Tahiti :-)

Direct Mail Response vs. E-Mail: Which is Higher?

By Richard H. Levey

Looking to increase returns? Go digital.

Whether campaigns are sent to outside mailing lists or house files, marketers anticipate—and have seen—higher responses to their e-mail efforts than they have to traditional mailings, according to two studies by Direct magazine.

Late last year, Direct asked readers what their response rates to traditional mailings had been during 2005. On average, outside lists generated a healthy mean response of 10.1%. Drops to house files did even better, at 16.6%.

Not too shabby for a workhorse channel. But according to a new survey sponsored by Direct and Multichannel Merchant, e-mailings sent to outside lists achieved 17.8% response rates, while those targeting house files got 18.5% returns.

Why the difference? Well, there’s the immediacy of e-mail, or more specifically the immediacy of response. It takes more time to hunt down a pen, and in some cases a stamp, than it does to click a reply button.

By and large, those polled are seeing higher responses as the years go on. Among those answering, 14% said they got better responses to e-mail campaigns aimed at their outside lists than they did in 2004; only 4% indicated they were lower.

The results are even more striking for house e-mail lists. Thirty-one percent said they received better responses to e-mailings that targeted their house files than they did in 2004, and just 6% claimed they were lower.

DMers doubtless are taking more care with their e-mailings because the rewards are greater. Many agree that e-mail promotions are more profitable than others. And most said these were either at least as, or more, profitable than those run in other channels.