What struck me was an email from Zappos this past week. Now the execution could have been clearer with font sizes and visual organization, or even better just focus on the core messaging to better place the value proposition front and center; but over all it was a genius idea. Setting the expectations of what is to come. Here comes the holidays, here is what to expect when (Read the content that I BOXED in orange), what you can do with it and why you want to look for it. Better yet it ends with “LOVE” and a note that the “story” starts Monday.

I have to admit I was excited to see what this new “story” campaign would be. I was impressed with the time spent to pre-educate an email subscriber/customer as to what to expect. I am just starting to get the emails now and I will hold complete judgement until after the 5 week “story” is complete.

This was relevant to me last week as I was planning a retail client Nov/Dec campaigns/Frequency/offers and had this open day in the plan that was a transistion date between campaigns. What a perfect time to actually test the idea of communicating with the customers/susbscribers as to what ot expect.

I am seeing it in other emails as well – lead by example maybe? Love this idea and can’t wait to see how proactive communication on expected frequency steps out of the opt in and into the email.

Psst. We are testing this idea right now in some campaigns as well to see how it works out.

I am a firm believer that not everyone should have access to an ESP platform unless they have some skin in the game. Use your gmail, msn, yahoo, personal email to get a personal relationship with me. Free accounts simply allow people to take liberties with email and blatantly goes against all the best practices and rules we all fight so hard to instill and drive.

I put this discussion with other examples out to a “Email List” I am on. One person wanted to challenge me if it was a bad business model if it was not causing any deliverability or reputation issues to their IP. Larger picture here… it is causing a reputation issue on a personal level with me and many others whom I have talked to about this same issue over the past few months… and I can only assume that the larger issue is it is not just with me but with millions of other people that are exploiting these free accounts for under X contacts etc. If you are just after the money and not the education, monitoring, reputation and driving people to use email responsibly (sounds like a Nancy Reagan 1982 drug stump here) then why are you in this business? You are running the risks of damaging email marketing for those that are doing it right and respecting customer/subscriber relationships.

This was the one email that put me over the top recently. You are actually emailing me admitting you are not sure how we are connected. Maybe it is LinkedIn. Maybe MSN. Who knows…. but can I follow you on Twitter? Really? Must be another social media expert blowing up his/her followers. Good luck with that.

No I can’t freind/follow/hold you but I can use the SafeUnsubscribe as I want to be safe and never get an email from you again.

Now I am not going off to file spam complaints, I will use the “Unsubscribe/SafeUnsubscribe/OneClick whatever you want to call it” link, but I will also be forwarding it to abuse@ each ESP. Guys (ESPs) you need to pay attention here and not be asleep at the wheel. If you are going to make a business decision to give everyone the ability to email you need to commit to education, policing and enforcement of best practices and laws.

Does anyone else agree with me here? Will these free email ESP accounts harm the industry more than propel revenues?

KThxBai

It was love at first site. Email, an inbox, communications, connections, wild mind blowing stuff…. well even today email still intrigues me. So many others jump from tech to tech, thing to thing, but one thing stays a constant not matter what you throw at it.

You (MSN/Hotmail) were my first and I am not sure why I keep you around as we have grown so apart and our friends all know where to find us at other places. Maybe it was just convenience and old habits. Maybe it was just time and attention.

Maybe I am running the other way in the 3 email addresses on average studies going on. Sure I have a Yahoo, a Gmail, a MSN, a work, and a few other email accounts, but do I really use them? It seems to me that it was time for me to move on. But after 7 months of failing to log in it dawned on me I should take a look as we were nearing the holiday season and I wanted to see if this profile I had set up had a different frequency cadence, offers, etc than the same emails I was getting and actually reading other places. So I went back into MSN assuming that many of these people would have killed me off, changed a cycle of emails, or tried different things. I mean that is what I would be doing and these were bigger brands that I would think have it nailed, right?

What I was amazed to find out was how wrong my assumptions were. I was shocked to see all the same promos, emails, and consistent mailing dates from many of the larger brands that I have not opened, read, or responded to emails for over 7 months. To me that is a long time to not make changes to what is working or failing in your email marketing programs.

Here is a snapshot:

MSN.com

Account Neglected (Abandoned): 4/03/09

Last Login (Remembered): 11/13/09

Never used to sign up for anything in 2 plus years. Used to use as main account in 1995 but really stopped as a primary in 2004 (Thx Gmail)

Total emails since last login: 1470 Inbox /144 Junk

My biggest thought coming out of this delayed login was if I had no response/action in 7 months why are brands still mailing me? Well I can understand that they just move through the cycle here till I say enough (unsub), change my preferences, or reengage; but why were all the emails the same offers, creative and frequency as my active email accounts? It was less of a shock at the volumes of email and more of a let down as to these marketers I felt were rocking it just being lazy.

Sure I am an email snob as this is what I do on a daily basis. My thoughts are engaged in all things email and I expect the best things out of email marketers. Guess it was time for some grounding.

In conclusion, I think MSN and I are done. Seven months is a lifetime online of not being engaged. We had 14 years together with ups, downs, missed logins, and utter dependence. Thanks for the good times. I also think that I am done with the majority of these email subscriptions – yet that was all just me thinking out loud – maybe I will simply leave this account open and watch to see if anything changes. Just the type of person I am – no lazy, but inquisitive to see how these people approach the challenge. And at the same time I am a constant optimist.

Take Away: If you are not working on mixed messaging and frequency to your subscribers you are just firing blanks. Sure you will always get a  certain percentage of folks to take an action, but will you ever move the bar? Get in and look at your data and make decisions. Stop checking the box. (not the inbox but the check list of tasks)

To support the launch of the Intuos4, Wacom Technology Corporation worked with eROI to put a new twist on the product launch with an effective integrated online campaign. This case study outlines the integrated online strategy used by Wacom, including results of the multi-pronged campaign; email, microsite, and offline channels working together to seamlessly promote the unique aspects of the new Intuos4 tablet.

Enjoy exploring the site and learn how it all came together to support the introduction and sales efforts.

“We’re absolutely happy with the number of visitors. We believe we’ve received a 70% awareness of our target audience. I mean, that’s really good. Not many companies are going to achieve that kind of awareness for a new product launch.”

~ Marketing Director, Wacom

Get the full study

Trust
What will you do with the information you collect from me? Will you protect it and make sure that it will only be used how I have asked it to be used? Will you make sure to honor it even when you think that a “blast” is ordered down from the C-Level? Your job is to take an oath to make sure that the information shared is clearly identified from opt in and presented in a clear manner that builds trust.

Clarity
What am I giving you my information for? Is it a contest? Newsletter? Purchase? What will you send me in the future? What can I expect from you in my inbox? A good program will clearly present the uses of contact, communication and the premise of the relationship. It is your job to honor that and keep your word.
Conversation
What do you have of value to hold the attention of your subscriber? If you are simply giving the same old information that is found on the web, your site or other locations, is the interest going to be held? Content for your emails needs to be unique, thought out and valuable or you run the risk of increasing the churn and forcing them to other sources for the same information.

Mutual Benefits
You must give to get and get to give. Simply forcing offers, content and things only of value to your goals are not going to drive results of your campaigns. Sure you will get some conversions, but if you continue to only worry about advancing your goals you will eventually, and sometimes faster than you thought, have that subscriber unsubscribe, stop reading or simply stop taking actions.

Transparency
Sharing real information and bringing your subscribers into the fold is a better way to build a relationship. Making them a part of the campaign will elevate your results. As we are all witnessing with social media, email can be the same vehicle if you take each opportunity to bring the information, offers and conversation to a place where there is investment from both parties into knowing the value of the relationship. Are there things you are doing as a company that might give them a better feeling about you? Are you having conversations in other places that you can bring into your emails, sharing in other places of engagement? Think about how you can pull your other areas like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even company initiatives into the light. Seeing some consumer brands I know share things about work they are doing with environmental issues, social issues, and employee programs often makes me feel closer to the brand or campaign.

Listening
Your metrics are your best resource. Are you constantly looking and evaluating what is working? Do you make sure to segment and produce content/offers that are what your subscribers are looking to you for? Thinking about email successes and failures is what allows us all to do better. Listen to your results and use those results to make informed decisions on your next outreach. On side note to listening, here is a pet peeve of mine: Are you sending from an email address that uses “noreply@”, “companyname@”, or something else that is either impersonal or an address that does not encourage feedback? When sending email, the last thing you want to do is close down that avenue for feedback. Test using an address like “feedback@” or “talktous@” and see how that works. Don’t fear the results and added work, because you never know what you might learn.

Patience
Every campaign will not be a home run. Everything you send out is not going to work  as planned. Taking the approach of learning from each campaign, this is where testing comes into play. You should be testing at least one variable on each campaign. If you are nervous about it, try simple things like multiple offers, 2 subject lines, or a change to an image placement, call to action or button color. Simple tests can reveal more than you expect and simple tests allow you to set the pace of your own learning.

Understanding
If you can not figure out how to use email effectively or need help with best practices, ask for help or search out those that can make sense of it. Make an effort to continually educate yourself and those you work with. If you are stuck doing the same old things because that is your comfort zone, get out of the zone. You are surrounded by hundreds of people at companies and agencies that have experience you can lean on. It is not a scary thing. We all learn new things every day. Personally, that is one of the reasons I am so excited to wake up and go to work each day. I learn not only from my clients, my industry peers and my team, but also from others I simply watch and pick up new techniques. Be an eternal student and seek a teacher if you need one.

These are some simple, hopefully straightforward thoughts that you can take and implement into your programs. Realize that none of us are experts but some of us have more experience than others. I will be the first to go on record that if it were not from doing, learning, listening, reading, interacting and asking that I would never have had the experiences that have grown my knowledge. I am not an expert; I just play one on TV.

Most marketers are caught in the eternal struggle to gain more opt in records, having no plan on how what happens next aside from “let’s email them.” Marketing, not just email marketing, needs to have a plan for how to grow relationships once they have started. If you can think about next week / next month / next year, you can nurture healthy relationships and get out of the grow-my-list game.

One of the challenges I continue to see is most interactive marketers not beginning the thought process around where their relationships are going. They live in the now and rarely think about one month, let alone one year, from now. The better you are at listening, reviewing and making plans, the better health your relationships will be in the long term.

Prospects enter into new relationships online with the hope that they will get, clearly communicated to them, something valuable and beneficial. We can use a real life relationship metaphor to talk about this, as it sometimes places it into an easier to understand flow for most.

1. The Look
Sure you saw it. This is something that you always remember about a great relationship. She/he looked at you across the room, saw something that attracted them, and you gave a signal that you were interested (this is the site visit).

2. The Bait
You had something that presented a benefit. This made them take interest in you and prompted them to walk across the room, park, or classroom and dive into a conversation (this is the content/value prop).

3. The Connection
Wait, we have something in common? You have something that is good for me and me good for you. How can we really connect to make sure that it is not just for the now but for a while? (This is the offer).

4. The Ask
Can we be friends? Can we exchange information in a way that is not too much, yet enough to meet again? What are you comfortable allowing me to know? And what am I going to do with it to have a good conversation with you? (This is the opt in).

4. Dates
Whether it is the first of a few encounters/engagements with your company through email, or further down the revenue cycle, you need to be thinking about the things that take your conversation to the next level. Did you say thank you? Did you open the door to new opportunities, events, knowledge, or an offer that makes me know more about our future relationship? Did you make sure to welcome me into your home? (This is the welcome message stream and/or drip campaigns)

5. Meet the Parents
We have been seeing one another for a while now. How can you open up the trust tree and introduce me to more facets of your life, trusting I will only use them to take this relationship to the next level? Can I know more about you? Are there some things you don’t feel I need to know? (This the preference center and progressive profiling)

6. The Marriage
We have been together a while now. Maybe I should start to look for clues into what you are telling me you really want. I can use that information to have engagements with you that I know you are open to and will respond to well. We are going to be together for a while. You might not like everything I might tell/share with you, but I am listening to you and learning what to do. Help me be a good partner and let me know the right thing to say or do at the right time. (This is testing and gathering data from past campaigns)

7. The Ups and Downs
Sure, this morning I sent you the wrong thing. You were not responsive to my ideas. That is okay, because I know there will be times when I say or do the wrong thing, but I can learn from them to be better. We can both be better by getting to really know one another (this is analyzing campaign data to make decisions, learning from successes and failures).

8. Temptation
I know that your eyes stray from time to time. I have seen it. I see that sometimes you think that other person looks like they might be better than me. But I know you. I understand you. I will do everything in my power, with the knowledge and understanding I have gained, to make our relationship the best one ever. Stick with me (this is the re-engagement campaign).

9. Growing Old Together
We have been together for a long time. You know my patterns, my ticks and my good and bad habits, and I know yours. We need continue to try new things and keep that spark between us (this bringing ‘sexy’ back with new offers and relevant content).

If you can think about your subscribers as not just another email address, but as an opportunity for you to land another relationship, you will end up growing old together while keeping the spark alive. Like in love, your email campaigns need to take the basic principals of a real relationship into consideration.

We only truly get to know one another with a two way dialogue that is full of listening, acting, forgiveness, and learning. Every day and every campaign is an opportunity to prove it. Can you stand the test of time? Follow these steps and your prize will be a life long relationship that is fulfilling to both your goals and the needs of your customer.

Or have you?

If you are the one in charge of email marketing efforts for your company and this is how you approach email marketing, then maybe it is time you start thinking about how you are going to start getting tactical for the holiday season and beyond.

Why a preference center?

Besides simply their email address that you already have in your database, what information would be more important for you to know about someone in order to have a relevant discussion?

In B to B
Current need, current provider, business challenge, stage in evaluation to make a change, location, and job title are just a few that instantly come to mind. These help the marketing team enable the sales team with relevant communications, by aligning messaging and strategy. With this alignment, organizations can reach out with a series of emails in a prospect to lead to customer lifecycle. This helps to prioritize and move the ball forward. Look at this as a team approach. When it comes to business growth and you need to huddle up and act like a team.

In B to C
Gender, location, size (retail), product interest and frequency of desired email communication are some of the main data, but what is relevant to capture is entirely dependent on your specific industry.
There are many ways to “ask” for this information, if you can put it together in a way that is valuable to someone completing it. You can use smart campaign ideas to get relevant click data in order to build a profile. Think about a clothing retailer and the use of simple things like men/women or S/M/L/XL as actionable data that you can append to a profile. When it comes to the consumer, don’t always expect that click data gives you the full picture. A subscriber could be in market to purchase a gift or product for someone else, thus skewing your data. So find ways to ask or build a profile from data over time. I have two retailers that continue, after six years, to send me product offers for women even after I’ve changed my gender in their preference center, which is slightly frustrating. Your typical customer would simply unsubscribe over time if they got these offers.

What is the goal that you wish to achieve from an email preference center?
There is always a “what’s in it for you.” What are those things that, if you had them, would make your email programs better? If you had X, Y or Z facts, could you be more strategic and deliver better offers, emails and campaigns that truly lift your sales/goals? You need to start with defining these goals according to data and start from there.

Is this helpful to you, or to your subscribers?
Are you out to help people? What I mean is, are you taking the time to look at your email marketing efforts from the other side of the inbox to see what changes would actually make a positive impact on the relationship from the subscriber perspective. Looking at your campaigns from the other side can give you a way to work backwards and realize why someone actually subscribed to your emails, thus giving your efforts a boost of insight. Why have they subscribed in the first place? Is it information? Learning? To save money? To be closer to you as a brand?

Is there a middle ground?
Of course there is. There is no way that you can only think of it one way. Email is relationship marketing. If you want a good relationship you need to be giving, listening, and working on it each and every day. It is not something that you can go about as just having something to sell. Taking this approach might work some of the time, but after a while that success will dry up. You will either start to hemorrhage subscribers, losing interest (thus clicks and conversions), and be forced to radically change your approach. Or you could simply be constantly fighting for more new subscribers to offset the loss.

Email preference centers are usually an easy thing to implement but many people we talk to see it as a challenge from a technological point with getting data in sync. Well even if you can only store these records in your email platform or CRM that is a good start. Look to where you can best use it and feed the data in that direction. You can always look at integration with other systems later, but you need to start somewhere.

One of the easiest places to start is at the opt-in. Sure you only grab an email address now, but what are you sending them to on the thank you page? Is there an opportunity for you to use progressive profiling at that point to ask 2-3 more questions? If so, do it and tie a win to them for completion. Convey the benefit to them so they will gladly give you the information to use. Or you can do so with a welcome email triggered by sign up. It should be instant and not delayed a few days (or weeks as I have witnessed at times). They are engaged with you and just gave you some information. Why not ask for it then? Sure, a certain percentage of them will not complete it, but many will if you present it with reasons to share it with you. Simply asking for it is not the best approach as we are all wary of why we need to surrender or share more data. Tell them that by doing so they will get more relevant emails, will get earlier access to sales, studies, or other offers that others do not. But if you tell them this you will need to deliver on it.

In closing, it is now time for every email marketer to have a preference center to begin the move to valuable email engagement. Or you can simply sit back and do what you have been doing all along, helping contribute to all of those that like to write articles about the death of email. It is in your hands.

Q: “We are looking for more features, do you have more than our current provider?”

A: “Do you use the current features of X provider? No? So, why do you want more?

“We have seen some other people doing great work out there and noticed that they work with you.”

“I am really concerned about our deliverability.”

“My current provider never helps me be better.”

“I am looking to send more and spend less.”

“We always audit this time of year, typically via RFP, but have been with the same provider for 4 plus years. Our corporation mandates an annual review.”

Q: “How can we get the data we need?”

A: “Do you have a plan to use it if you get it?”

I can play devil’s advocate on about anything out there, but what is really comes down to is that everyone is always looking for something bigger, better, sexier, and different. Not only that, but in many cases they expect it to be cheaper.

But is cheaper more expensive? In the long run, yes. If you are looking at cutting your investment in a channel that over and over again drives revenues and out-performs most other online marketing tactics, then you might be taking money out of your own pocket. What? Yes. The less you work on your creative, testing, segmentation, cross media/platform engagement, then the less return you can expect no matter what email platform you are using.

I really want to impart some thoughts to people shopping around. You need to not just be wowed by the bells and whistles of some email platforms, but even more important is to be wowed by the people you are working with. So often I hear pitches from people out there that are selling using a feature approach. Features are only good if you are really going to use them. It reminds me of a car salesman when I hear about the things that are really cool but most marketers will typically never use. If someone is selling you something like air conditioned seats, you better live in Arizona and not Minnesota. The problem is we all like to have them whether we use them or not.

On the other side, to stay on topic, there are so many competing email solutions out there that it seems the cost of email marketing is not a factor. Email is free, email marketing is not. This has to do with the fact that, if you have a platform that cannot get your email to the inbox because they have 1000 people on the same IP and they spend close to zero time trying to educate you, then you might as well not be sending email. Email marketing is not just a software solution; it is working with people that have actual experience creating and deploying campaigns with results. Nine times out of ten the person that is selling you software has never planned, created or deployed an email campaign. Just having the ability to show you software is going to get your campaigns nowhere.

When you look for a partner in email marketing, make that the person you are talking to just isn’t another salesperson, but someone that is an email marketer. You will get more bang for your buck, and more bucks (that’s revenue) from your campaigns, making the cost of your email software a non-issue.

It seems that just as we all wrap up the holiday season, we take a hiatus for a few months to focus on new campaigns… while simultaneously planning for the next big rush. After the slower season last year caused by the falling (collapsing) markets, many people took a beating. So what can we take from last year and apply to the current home stretch in which we find ourselves?

1. Get started early. As witnessed from as early as August of this year, campaigns are referencing the holidays (see Chad White’s post on holiday trends and what he has seen from retailers here). Countdowns are starting as far as 100 days out. Is it too early to start? Based on last year’s sales numbers, everyone is seeding the idea way ahead of the traditional October 15th date (that was just this past week).

2. Have a game plan. If you count on the holiday season to drive a large share of your business, a plan is necessary to avoid early list fatigue. There are so many days from now until the holiday that the more you bombard your subscribers about the holiday, the more you might lose out on the others that fall in between. Connecting with this group effectively can give a crucial lift to your sales. Work your way into it and show a little restraint. Hints or even a nice call out in your creative with a countdown or reminders are a good approach without placing too much focus on the event. With a plan that is designed well you will have a good cadence and frequency refined and timed to go to the distance.

3. TEST TEST TEST. That is right – test your campaigns. This is a perfect time to be experimenting with smaller segmented lists, timed offers, variables in your email creative, and subject line testing. I mean, if you are going to get all over this time of year as your time to shine, why waste it with massive drops? Taking the time to test, and most importantly measure your tests, can pay off this time of year. Don’t get lazy just to get a campaign out. Make it your goal to run as many tests as you can.

4. Frequency. Sure you can drop one email a month, even one every other week. Better yet, if you are sending good emails that are relevant you can even get closer than that. I have saved campaigns for the past 7 years during this season and have seen that they start out (around this time) at about once a week, moving closer and closer as the Dec 25th approaches. We even see some campaigns move to every day the last two weeks of this season. You would think that people unsubscribe at a higher rate with this type of frequency, but remember they are in market at this time of year trying to get those last minute gifts, using their budgets (both personal and corporate), and are just as busy are you. If you are providing good campaigns and not simply making slight changes to the one you sent yesterday as a reminder (“Sale Ends Today”) then they will be welcomed most of the time. But pay careful attention to your metrics and unsubscribe rate so that you do not damage your future campaigns.

This is the longest time of the year in email, so take the high road and immerse yourself in the job so that you can do it right.

I saw this example this week, now it is one of the LONGEST emails I get - over 6000 pixels long, but what struck me was the creative approach to the sponsorship. It caught my eye immediately (will it catch yours?) and did not interfere with the content of the email I was expecting to get. Mission accomplished.

I am going to try to get a good shot of it to share but bear with me as it is one heck of a long email.

Another good example was the HP/Aliens and Monsters campaign recently featured here.

It seems to run on the new background take over idea I see in so many portals and blogs and this works for me. Building a campaign that helps, works or does not interfere with the relationship is a great approach.

I wanted to share one the types that I find to be a bad relationship method in Sponsored emails. Sure this is what everyone does but did it really give me any value as a subscriber? Not really. And if you take a look at the areas I highlighted in red you will see some interesting things. It comes from the person I have opted in to, it has zero content or value from that person, the header/footer postcard wrapper is in full effect, and most importantly look at the unsubscribe message “As a subscriber we are pleased to provide you this unique educational offer.” If you want off this list you have to unsubscribe. So in essence if you want to be a subscriber to their daily newsletter you will need to put up with all of these or remove yourself. Maybe an ability to update your profile and opt out of partner promotional messages?

The point of this post is that you need to start looking for new ways to partner with people when it comes to sponsored emails. No longer should you just try the insert offer here approach but try to invent new ways to working with the partner to add value and not steal away from the expected and existing relationship that they own, not you.