Chris Baggott's Email Marketing Best Practices

Email vs. RSS in the world of Marketing

Interesting comment I came across from back in December. I thought I would share my answer here:

Dear Chris,

I saw this in another blog that discusses the idea that eNewsletters are losing their hold on the market and instead will be replaced by RSS.  What are your thoughts on this?

Veronica
http://www.essentialsecurity.com/

Thanks for the heads up Veronica. The author is right and very wrong. 

If I am not getting useful information in an email...what makes me think that I’m going to get any better information via RSS feed?

I subscribe to  a “newsletter” with an expectation of value.  I’m disappointed most of the time...so I unsubscribe.

This has nothing to do with the technology of message delivery and everything to do with the entire concept of a “Newsletter”.   

The key to success for marketing anything to anyone is relevance.   Use your data to talk to people like they are human beings.  Forget newsletters or anything that is not specifically designed to engage me in a conversation.   If you have nothing to say to me....leave me alone. 

RSS or Email...that’s a different argument altogether.   99% of the internet engages with email.  Less than 2% use RSS feeds.  Even if that goes to 10% with the advent of better technology...that doesn’t mean these same people are going to stop engaging in email.

The problem is the message, not the technology.

Make sense?

Chris

Email Marketing and the Concept of Prior Value

I learned a new term today from Stephanie Miller of Return Path.  Prior Value.  I can’t remember the exact stat, but the basic premise from her research is that the top reason given for a subscriber engaging with an email was “Prior Value”.  The value I felt I got from your previous email.   Brilliant.   Waste my time I ignore you.   Provide specific value to me…duh….I engage.

Prior Value…wish it was in my book.

I'm starting a new company

This appeard in the IBJ today so I thought I'd better share it with you all

TECHNOLOGY
ExactTarget co-founder launches blog software startup


Chris Baggott, co-founder of fast-growing local e-mail marketing firm
ExactTarget, has quit his day job to form a new software company.
Compendium Software will attempt to standardize the blogging process for
companies and turn it into a cornerstone of their marketing. Baggott was
ExactTarget's chief marketing officer. He formed the company along with
its CEO, Scott Dorsey, in 2000. By 2005, ExactTarget had grown to $19.7
million in annual revenue, making it the city's third-fastest-growing
private company, according to IBJ's 2007 Book of Lists.

Baggott remains an ExactTarget board member and shareholder. He said
he'd rather work with early-stage startups than mature firms.
ExactTarget now has more than 200 employees. "This is in no way about a
lack of confidence in what's going on at ExactTarget," Baggott said.
"It's on a great track. It just got to a point where, to me, it's
becoming a big, important company, and they can hire people to do my job
better than I can." At ExactTarget, Baggott wrote a blog about marketing
that has been recognized as "Best of the Web" by Forbes magazine. He
said he's been "noodling" the idea of launching a blogging software firm
for about a year. In January, he raised $250,000 from a dozen local
angel investors to launch Compendium Software. He used the Indiana
Economic Development Corp.'s venture capital tax credit incentive to
help entice them. For now, Compendium has no offices. "The blogging
universe looks very similar to the e-mail universe when ExactTarget
entered it," Baggott said. "There's no question there's a huge pent-up
demand for good blogging tools." Baggott said its software will allow
companies to easily offer branded blogs, as well as monitor and control
their content.

The 70% Solution

I'm doing a lot of thinking lately on program effort.   You might remember a few years ago we talked a lot about execution pain.   Basically if you look at the whole marketing pie and divide your time between execution and actual marketing you will probably find that 70% of your time is dealing with execution.

I think marketing is easy.   Its basic; you simpli want to listen and respond appropriately.  You want to find new people to begin relationships with and then nurture and maintain those relationships for mutual benefit....(I'll discuss mutual benefit in a later post)

Peter McCormick one of my partners with ExactTarget has this saying about Boiling The Ocean.  I think this is what happens to most marketers.  We attack the entirety of a problem.   My experience has been that you can get to 70% of a solution with about 20% of the effort.  All the pain comes with the remaining 30% that consumes 80% of the resource.

Couple of big problems here:  For one, there is no such thing as 100% of solution in anything related to marketing.  It's never over.  Marketing is about incremental improvement. 

What I see happening, even in my own environment is creep.  "Boy let's use city as a segment".   "Yeah, great idea and then lets add last purchase date and the compatible product with that sku".   

"Uhhh....  Sure.....but that data is in a different system"  "let me go get (insert IT here) and see how to get at that"

See what happens??   Nothing.