Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices

Best Confirmation Emails

Again with the theme that great email marketing doesn't need to be hard, let's talk about confirmation emails.

I place an order.  Some system confirms my order and triggers an email. 

The problem is that these emails are normally complete wastes of opportunity. Typical of this genre is a simple text email with a link for tracking my order. 

What's normally missed is the opportunity to seal the relationship, to invite feedback or questions...and don't forget the opportunity to upsell. 

Transactional emails are going to be read!  Don't miss the opportuntiy.

I just ordered some new Tele Skiis from backcountry.com  (not a customer of ExactTarget, but I sure wish they were)   This is one of the best transactional emails I've ever recieved.  They even invite me to chat right from the email and offer some potential cross sell opportunity.  Seeing that I bought skiis, I'm not sure why they are offering me a link to Rossingnal, but I'll assume the have tested this...or perhaps Rossi paid for that spot.

Marketing Is Easy

Hat's off to Kurt Vetters.  Kurt is a very successful medical rep.  I don't know a ton about his business, but I guess he is an independent distributor for a specific kind of wound care supplies.  What I do know is that Kurt is proof that great marketing doesn't have to be expensive or hard.  What he does best is take advantage of simple & inexpensive web tools like a blog (check out the link), His ExactTarget email marketing software (seen below), and is now doing online product demos on YouTube.  Way to go Kurt!

Note the use of a survey at the bottom....

Great email marketing doesn't have to be hard.

Many thanks to all who voted for ExactTarget in the ClickZ awards

I just wanted to say thank you to all who supported ExactTarget in the recent ClickZ awards.  ExactTarget was voted by their readers as best ASP Email Software.  I'm not crazy about the term ASP (Best On Demand Email Software or Best SaaS Email software is probably more appropriate) but I'm not complaining :-)

This award really tops off a fantastic year for ExactTarget. 

Salesforce.com Appy award for Best Appexchange:

Deloitte Fast 500 #11 Fastest Growing Technology Company:


Forbes Best of the Web Blog:

Inc 500 Fastest Growing SaaS Company:

some redemption for the email survey experience

Ok..credit where credit is due.  Maybe I've been too hard on Sofitel.  I actually got an email back that reflected some of what I answered in the survey:

Now, I think this is great.  I replied back and I feel actually a pang of human relationship here. 

I'll end this by saying that there are still some great lessons here:

1. Why didn't the first email come from Eric?
2. Why can't I reply to the first email?
3. What is the incentive for someone to go through the survey in the first place?
4. The headers in this email show's obviously this was automated...no problem with that but you don't need to make it so obvious.

To me this is a great lesson.  What was that Jerry Macgure line:  "He's almost the man I want him to be."

Same here.   This is sooo close as to be painful.

Seinfeld, Jerk Store and Email Marketing

Remember the "Jerk Store" episode in "Seinfeld"?   Well I had that moment this morning thinking about my post yesterday on the Email Marketing Survey from my new friend Dave O'Shaughnessy....

What I should have done is reference another Seinfeld episode where Jerry is talking to the annoying telemarketer:  "Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later?"

C'mon people get with the program.  You actually want your customers to talk to you.   If they can't talk to you, well....they talk about you.

How a survey can let you see into the soul of an organization

Is hate too strong of a word to describe how I feel about surveys? 

Generally there are two things (maybe three) wrong with most surveys:

1. You can tell yourself lies with surveys.   Questions can be written to give you just about any answer you want.  Most people think they are good at asking survey questions and they are not.
2. Most data collected in a survey will never actually benefit the person answering the survey questions.   "you want me to spend 7 minutes of my LIFE on this stupid project to help YOU?"
3. Well...#3 is probably the same as #2....but the data is going to be wasted and not change my life one bit.

The following is a perfect example:

The following shows up in my inbox today.  Unsolicited I might add.   Check out the top.  Somehow they are smart enough to send me the English version I guess.

   

So I suppose it's nice that Dave the COO of Sofitel and I are on a first name basis, but as he makes this pitch where is the benefit to me?   And hey Dave:  If we are so tight, how come I'M NOT ALLOWED TO REPLY!   Moron.  I guess you don't want direct feedback.  Just the filtered kind some research company sold you.

The reality is that they do a few things right with this email.  They recognize me and the date of my stay.  They do permit me to unsubscribe.  But why would anyone take the time to fill this out? 

Of course I hate useless surveys enough to click the link anyway....hoping to make a lession out of this.  :-)

The following are a few of the questions and some thoughts on each...thoughts focused not on being an a--hole, but on showing missed opportunity.

Let me mention that the first page of the survey let's me know this is going to take anywhere from 4 to 7 minutes...why?  What are they really after?

So here we are at a typical question.  Honestly,   Why are they putting me through all this?  Look at the bar in the upper right letting me know how much further I've got to go.  As general data this is garbage.   Impeccably?  So I gave them middle of the road scores here except for the Quietness of the Room.   I wonder if I'll get a Quieter room next time??

So this one was great.  Mind you I'm somewhere around 10 questions into this thing by now.  Look at the names of resturants?  I'm supposed to remember if the hotel lobby resturant was called La Fougasse or Chez Colette?  I staggered off the elevator and walked in.

Oh another interesting thing to note:  I WALKED IN DURING LUNCH!  I guess they are not interested in any feedback regarding the midday meal.   I Had a club sandwich with some kind of crazy homemade chips served in a weird cone thing.  Remember it well....if anyone really cares.

Ok one more series...

These questions focus on The Competition.  Ok, by now I'm many more questions in and probably coming up on the 7 minute wall.   They want to know about the competion.  How many nights do you travel on business?   (over 100)  How many nights do you travel for pleasure?  (15).

Ok, Sofitel I should now be sending alarms off somewhere in your organization.   Favorite hotel?  (Westin)   In a program?  (SPG >250,000 beautiful platinum points)

The above page is just an exampleof the many competitive questions asked.  I'm telling them specifically what I love and my preferences.   What a marketing treasure trove.   Surely providing all this personal data is going to drive them to make me some pretty compelling offer to switch to Sofitel?   I doubt it.

I'll bet money I'll never hear from these people again.  My plea for Jim Beam in the minibar will go unheard and another opportunity to use data driven email marketing to build a truely great relationship with a high value customer will be  wasted.

Pity.  I'll also be some company charged them north of $100 grand to set up this scientific survey.

PERSONALIZATION, FREQUENCY AND RELEVANCY: THE EMAIL SUCCESS TRIO

The Technology Council of Southern California posted a great article from Morgan Stewart. 

  Personalization.  Frequency.  Relevancy.   The potential that can be unleashed by acting upon these three words is significant.

Consider Amazon.com, whose CRM database is arguably the online world's most valuable asset. Amazon.com leverages their database to deploy personal, relevant and timely communications based on historical customer interactions while maintaining a high level of trust.

In the early days of email marketing, generating lofty response rates proved relatively easy-definitely easier with a higher return on investment (ROI) than other direct marketing channels such as direct mail. The costs were low and the returns were high. A single, one-size-fits-all email message sent to thousands of subscribers resulted in response rates that no other medium could achieve. However, as email evolves into a mainstream marketing channel, it takes more than batch 'n blast messages to sustain high response rates.  read more....

Geat Email Marketing Doesn't have to be Hard

I love email marketing, and I love great innovative email marketing. And I love all of this even more when it comes from normal everyday businesses. Folks that don't have deep marketing pockets or fancy agencies. People who are just smart.

So I am considering building a stone wall. Not the fancy precut cement-that-looks-like-stone kind, but the real old fashioned hard work kind.

I'm not ready yet, just in the research phase. I find this place online that has great educational content so I agree to sign up for their email. What do I get? Nothing beautiful, just exactly what I needed! It's brilliant. Check out the screenshot below and then hit this link http://info.stoneyard.com/video.html?jmid=578391853

Great email marketing doesn't have to be hard. The tools are easy and inexpensive. YouTube is free. All you need is desire.