Perfecting Your Personalization Strategy

I walked into the perfect restaurant. In addition to their standard menu, they allow you to pick your meat(s), your vegetables, your condiments, & how you want it - all to try and please you. They have impeccable service and they actually check up on you at least three times during every meal.

First it is your server, next it is the manager, then it is back to your server before they bring you your check. As usual, it was a wonderful dining experience, superb food, excellent service and tons of variety.

They stay busy, they have a lot of repeat business, & a lot of word of mouth marketing. Their personalized touch offers lots of lessons here for online marketers.

Typically when I first sign up for emails from a company there’s a sense of curiosity about the offers I’ll receive, the more targeted and personalized they become, the more I like it. I love for the company to personalize, to interact regularly and dive deeper through surveys.

You can kick it up a notch by making offers relevant to the consumers browsing and purchases – tie the offers to your web analytics so you can see what categories people are visiting on your site. The more a consumer clicks, the more you know, add purchase data to the mix, and package all of this to create a very personalized approach to email marketing.

There are other companies are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I signed up for emails from a coffee company after purchasing three of their blends. I filled out the paper survey (included in the shipment) telling them which of the blends I liked and didn’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think the results were incorporated into their marketing mix, because I still get the same emails targeting their top blend (which I liked the least)… why ask if you aren’t going to use the information?

So the three things to think about when you think personalization - first, make sure you are grateful your consumer has come to you - thank them for the purchase, & learn as much as you can about them. Next, apply this learning to personalize what you are sending them. Third - be tactful as you ask them for referrals, check up on the consumer - see if they are happy with what you have provided. Do this throughout the lifecycle of their purchase and they will appreciate it. Now, don't be bashful about asking them for that referral on Facebook.

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Effective Strategies to Handle Email Churn

Email files continue to churn, attrition caused by unsubscribes, address changes and general lack of interest – making list growth one of the key, ongoing, areas of focus for any email marketer. Our loyal readers know that interactive conversations and continued engagement are our top recommendations – but we realize that even the best marketers have recipients on the cusp of unsubscribing. Here are a few ways to help hold onto the names you’ve already earned.

Unsubscribes

Unsubscribes must be handled with a sense of urgency, something has obviously caused the action, so put a process in place to either get them back or close the loop on a positive note. Here’s a starter strategy to help:

1) Immediately acknowledge the unsubscribe request

2) Ask why they chose to unsubscribe, offer to reduce the frequency; change the focus of the email campaigns (if you can) or send to an alternate email address.

3) If you have the option, put out a call to the customer to facilitate the process (point #2). The personal touch and genuine interest may give you the edge in winning them back.

4) Suggest a trial (probationary) period for the potential unsubscriber to reevaluate your campaigns; use this time to put them on the win-back campaign series.

5) Give them access to your 'secret treasure trove.' Let them peruse your best deals or best articles. They might buy something or not leave.

Remember, you have a one in seven chance of winning them back and making them a loyal follower.

Bounces (Soft Bounces excluded)

First make sure there isn’t a domain issue. If it’s address specific, assign the recipient to another channel, maybe through a special direct mail postcard. If you have the ability to flag your CSR’s CRM, put together a script to collect their (updated) address during the next interaction. You can always explore the options of using an ECOA (Email Change of Address) service or maybe an append company.

Remember to act quickly and display a sense of urgency in your actions, this will reinforce the importance of your program both to your recipients and your colleagues.

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Hands in the Fishbowl

I heard of a retailer who had a little bad luck with the law due to a group of overzealous employees. Assigned the task of growing their email lists, the store employees at a few prominent metro locations decided to approach local restaurants and offer the manager one of their gift certificates in exchange for the email addresses in their "Win a Free Lunch" fishbowl. See the issue – there was a nice boost in terms of emails collected but the recipients never asked for the solicitation, so there were a lot of complaints, unsubscribes and quite a bit of good will to remedy the situation once everything was sorted out.

Although I admire their enthusiasm, maybe it would have been better to have those employees approach the local area restaurants for a co-branded fishbowl. The concept is the same, but the offer includes the opportunity to win lunch from the restaurant and a gift card from your business.

Put together the associated collateral; subscribe page and a co-branded welcome email to reinforce the benefits of the program. From this point, you can operate independently until you’re ready to announce the winner… and may I suggest notifying by email too?

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Take Care of the Bird in Hand

I had meetings with three organizations; the first was an online retailer that told me that they have very little repeat business despite their selection. Another merchant (catalog, web and B2B store presence) told me that half their hits on search come from existing customers. The third was a bank that gives away $50 to open new accounts, yet only one in 20 of the people opening these accounts actually establish more than one other relationship with the bank. These numbers are disappointing, but not atypical.

We spend so much money on acquiring new customers, but very little is done to take care of the existing – our focus should start from within, by nurturing existing relationships. Start with a thank you email that is personal; follow up with a call (even a voicemail will do). The goal is to establish a dialogue to thank the new customer and solicit feedback to improve your process.

After the initial email (and/ or discussion) put the customer on a recurring campaign to introduce them to your brand; highlight certain parts of your business and make sure that your dialogue is educational. Regularly solicit their feedback on your campaigns.

It might seem like too much work, but keep in mind that if you compare this with the cost of new customer acquisition – it is only a part of the overall cost.

To the first company, I suggest creating an email help desk to call customers, thank them and solicit direct feedback about their experience. Follow this up with two to three campaigns that inquire, educate and introduce recipients to other parts of the business.

To the second company, put the customer on a recurring stream of communiqués – part of your bonding program. Send them a sample, solicit their feedback and keep in touch.

Finally, to the bank, make the recipient tell you more about themselves in exchange for the $50. Then assign a rep to this newly acquired customer – make it their responsibility to stay in touch with them over the first four weeks. The goal should be to make them aware of the services your bank has and see if you can help the new account holder meet their personal goals.

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Landing Pages

A five hour wait at an airport made me really think hard about customer service, targeted offers, & testing. The lunch I ordered was simple - tomato soup, a turkey sandwich on wheat bread, & a side order of salad (with my raspberry vinaigrette dressing on the side). I chose a sit down restaurant versus fast food because I had the time & I preferred the more personalized approach to eating.

Ten minutes after my order was taken the server returned to tell me that they were out of tomato soup - I chose the chowder instead. My salad arrived soon after with two problems - the dressing was mixed into it & it wasn't the raspberry vinaigrette either. No problem, I said as I finished what was given to me. The turkey sandwich arrived on wheat bread but almost 30 minutes after I had finished my salad. I was not very happy, but I didn't complain.

I spent my down time 'waiting' checking out my personal offer emails from some of my favorite senders. Here were a few of the emails that took me 'nowhere.'

A big electronics company sent me a survey on a purchase that I had recently made. Three screens later, I hit submit to complete the survey only to get an 'OLE object error' with a request to try taking the survey again.

My financial institution sent me five emails with the subject line, 'Online Statement Notification from ABC Bank.' I diligently opened each one - we have multiple accounts there - savings, checking, money market, kid 1 & kid 2. Each one said, 'Exclusively for Sundeep Kapur,' and in the fine print below it listed the last five digits of each of the accounts. So until I logged in, I really did not know which account I was checking. There were no offers in the email. On the landing page of one of the messages, I was asked to open a money market account - something I already have.

'Top Five for Comfort,' screamed the subject line of an email from a shoe company. I liked two of the shoes so I clicked through to find more - the email took me to their home page, I then had to search for the featured styles, it took me a good 10 minutes to find the shoes, and then I couldn't find them in my size.

I found another email from my big electronics company with an offer to a television. Confused, (as I had just purchased one last week) - I opened the email to learn about the great TV offerings that they had. If I was running that email program, I would have stuck to the survey and maybe made an offer to a surround sound system.

Think about this, you have a user who has opened your messages - shouldn't you test to make sure things are working, your offers are relevant, & you take the consumer to the product they want.

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Why Sign Up?

I have the opportunity to run a number of workshops on email marketing. The learning here is two way - I learn as much as the participants of the workshops.

One of the exercises I prescribe to attendees is to list the reasons why their recipient should sign up for their email marketing campaigns.

The goal is for the reasons to be crisp, clear, & concise - so consumers understand what they are getting. Here are some of the top submissions; feel free to borrow – but make sure you personalize and involve your team, it’s the only way to give the reasons life:


From two B2B Suppliers:


– Learn about useful products relative to your industry


– Learn how our products can save time and money


– New product announcements


– Industry news and events


– Keep current on upcoming events


From an Apparel Company:


– Exclusive promotions


– Sneak previews to collections


– Fashion advice



From a Specialty Foods Company:


– Our emails include offers and useful content


– all towards feeding your passion


– Tested, proven recipes to add to your collection


– Quick links to new products, ideas and articles



From a Software Company:


– Industry news, updates and regulations


– Case studies and whitepapers


– Product updates and new services value



From a B2C Cataloger:


– Be the first to see new products before they appear in the catalog


– Read the stories behind our products and artisans and to see the economical impact on the regions we buy from



The financial institutions took a slightly different approach; here are suggestions from three different groups:



– Go Green, Get Green – sign up for our emails and eNewsletters to get your information faster, save the environment and earn cash incentives.


– Tips and tricks to stretch your money


– Secure messaging in the privacy of your home


– Personalized to your preferences



Again, feel free to use these for your sign-up process; just consider a couple additional points:



1) Validate the reasons every quarter – clarify and to adapt to changing market requirements


2) Use the points to educate your teams – front-line employees for certain


3) Tailor to you, after all the reasons are as unique to you as your program

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Some Basic (Absolute) Analytics

I meet and learn from a number of email marketers who are true devotees to the science of analytics – dissecting the opens, clicks, conversions and even abandoned transactions to learn more about their readers, customers and prospects. They segment recipient lists, version content, alter creative and test everything from timing to offers.

This science is more specific to the individual marketer rather than the program or industry… so, unfortunately, there’s no one best answer, however, here are a few suggested items to get you into the right mindset:

· Heat Maps – Are you analyzing your content to see where people are clicking – main logo, primary offer or other things? Experiment with the layout to see how it affects their click behavior, simple changes like adding product category navigation can help boost click rates. If they're clicking on the View email online link, consider revising (creating) a multi-part email.

· Simple Subject – Test which subject line elements stimulate more opens, for instance, try words relating to:

· Urgency – Hurry, Ends Soon, Only X days left

· Discount – Dollars or percentage off versus no discount message

· Exclusivity – Just for You, Exclusive, Sneak Peek, Pre-Sale or Be the First

Start experimenting (safely); simply looking at the results strengthens your segmentation, message content etc. It also enhances your bond with your recipients and helps broaden your talents as a marketer.

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Dealing with the 'Huh' factor!

Ever receive an offer for something you already have – maybe a mortgage, credit card or savings program from your bank. You’d think they know you, but for some reason they’re still selling you products you already have… even after you log in or refused the offer previously.

The same rings true with emails. What do you think about your financial institution selling you a product that you already have? How would you feel if you received an offer to travel to a destination that you just returned from? Or worse yet, an email offer to purchase apparel at a price that is lower than what you just spent?

What is even worse is when you click on an item but are taken to a general portion of the company site. Wouldn’t you have preferred a landing page with additional information? You really shouldn't have to find the information.

These are examples that are part of the Huh Factor. As marketers, it’s imperative to listen to our customers and prospects. Clicking on an item implies interest, so lead them to the next logical page in the marketing sequence – it could be the fastest, least expensive way to improve sales. Also, be sure to manage your segments properly - if someone already has something, don't target them with the same offer.

This growing discipline has shown impressive results, an overseas bank has achieved close to 30% higher return by optimizing the landing pages, and there are even courses on how to make the most of this approach. An apparel company gets 40% of their buyers to buy again within a six week period. Personalization does work, so start giving your recipients what they want!

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Five things to ask your Consumer?

Have you ever hosted a focus group discussion amongst those you serve? It is a great idea to stay in touch with the consumer as you can take pulse of the campaigns that you are sending and listen to direct feedback. This can be held in person, over the web, or even by a simple survey. Here are some questions to ask the consumer.

1 - Why did you sign up for email?
Have them list the reasons they signed up for your newsletter. Ask them what other campaigns they receive (from other companies). Share with them the goal of your newsletter and see if there is agreement. Use this feedback to see if you are meeting their general expectations.

2 - What do you like about our campaigns?
Have them list three to five things they like about your campaigns. Ask them about specifics - see if they remember some of your past campaigns (without showing them any of these campaigns). Ask them to help you prioritize your content. See what people like to read within your campaigns. Ask them what they think about campaign resends (to non openers).

3 - What do you not like about our campaigns?
Ask them about content they do not care about or things they simply dislike about your messaging. It could be your subject line, it could be your merchandise, it could even be the time it takes for your content to load. Ask them if your personalization is appropriate - you might get some interesting feedback from your consumers.

4 - What do you think about three 'specific' campaigns?
Next show them three specific campaigns - pick one that performed well, one that performed poorly, & one 'average' campaign. Ask them to critique these campaigns.

5 - What other channels do you notice us on?
Make a list of these other channels - it could be a paper catalog or a paper statement. It could be on social media channels, on TV or Radio. Don't tell them about your other channels, just listen to what they are saying. The idea is to see what other channels influence the consumer, how you can leverage content between channels, & if there is anything you can do to drive cross channel success.

You could pay external consultants a lot of money to get their feedback on your program. Look at your consumers instead, they are the ones that your program is designed to serve anyway.

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Ivory Towers & Social Media - II

The right way to engage and sell to prospects is to listen to their requirements, package your offer accordingly, convince the prospect to become a customer, and then collect revenue. The problem is created by 'customers' when they order a product from a company. Things now work in reverse as you have numerous people who claim credit. Sales usually says that they drove this 'order' but marketing comes in to supersede sales - they feel that their 'compelling message & collateral' got the sale.

Consequently, the Ivory Tower becomes bigger, and the organizations connection to customers & prospects becomes weaker. They (the Ivory Tower) continue to convince themselves and the organization that it was their magnetism that drew the prospect to become a customer. They continue in their endeavor to turn their marketing programs into cross channel marketing endeavors including social media engagement strategies.

While it is a little difficult and slow to measure the impact of direct marketing programs, it is easier to see the impact that social media has on our communications. Since things are now measurable and the prospect ignores the message, the 'marketing department' now begins to scratch their heads as to what is wrong. They cannot fathom the lack of engagement. Their strategy to solve this problem is to continue to invest more in internally focused social media programs or giveaways.

The giveaways again create a short lived engagement cycle - ultimately leading to further consumer disengagement.

So how do you fix this issue? For starters engage your prospects, your customers, & your front line in planning your social media strategy. Also, leverage the ability to track accomplishments to gauge the success of what works and what does not.

Effective social media is actually diligent application of good customer service & traditional marketing principles.

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Ivory Towers & Social Media - I

Ivory Towers - the 'bastions' of knowledge within an organization. Every organization has their share of 'armchair social media experts.' They feel that they know it better than anyone because they use social media personally, they have read a few articles, & consider themselves marketing experts.

The challenge with most of these experts is that their involvement either brings social media initiatives to a crawl, raises the complexity of what needs to be done, astronomically hikes the cost of social media initiatives, or simply make the competition look divine. The focus becomes internal and initiatives fail.

Here are some things that Ivory Towers promote but are the worst things you can do for your brand -

1 - Create billboards, & print collateral advertising your social media presence. A big bank, inspired by the Got Milk commercials, created a simple billboard - 'http://www.blogger.com/www.BankXYZ.com' - no call to action, nothing. Just the banks web site. They thought fans would rush in while stuck in traffic.

2 - Creating interactive games on your web site & blog to show how 'cool' your organization really is. Remember, the Ivory Tower does not think about consumer engagement, instead they think about ways to make your brand look 'kewl.'

3 - Not willing to join conversations - they want to lead conversations and start conversations, but it is beneath them to monitor these conversations to answer consumer questions. We can all learn a lot from SouthWest Airlines & their Twitter initiative.

4 - Focus on quantity of fans & followers, versus quality of each connection. Ivory Towers just want to grow the list!

5 - Having the approach of 'build it, & they (fans) will come.' Amazingly, emails, & other collateral is created demanding that the brand be followed on the social channels - no real reason why?

Ivory Towers have a hard time valuing conversations with fans. It is beneath them to listen. There is no value exchange for the fan.

If you really want to create a good network you need to give your fans a reason to join, and humbly join conversations. Social Media is about engagement and creating a buzz through that engagement - not the other way around.

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Some Bad Examples on Social Media

Social Media continues down a frenetic pace and can do an effective job in engaging people. The market abounds with experts & unfortunately a lot of these 'experts' don't espouse the guiding principles of social media. Rants, raves, & self adulation don't really add much value to social media. Here are some horrific examples of what is being said in social sphere.

A very big corporations, very senior person was asked, 'How are you focusing on Social Media?' His answer, 'To continue to strive, to meet, and to exceed my customer's expectations in a dynamic economy, with a focus on values about our core customer and recognition of evolving demographics.' Deep, profound, and hard to comprehend. This is the vision that has stalled this corporations endeavor into the next step.

Another big corporation showed me their Social Media statement, 'Our focus is to enrich our customers' personal lives and to make them more successful by bringing to market exciting and useful products & services, empowering our employees & shareholders, & stakeholders in the process.' I bobbled my head in awe!

A CEO of an online retail software company made a statement in January 2009, 'Social Media will be gone in 2010!' Of course, he had a bias - his software allowed you to invest in search marketing and he was concerned that he would be cutting into his margins.A learned & esteemed internet consultant made a statement in January 2010, 'Social Media is too expensive, too hard, and almost impossible to justify!' What was his bias? He was a very intelligent guy and explained that by partnering with him he would break down the hard part for you. He still charges a pretty penny and knows how to justify his invoice.

A VP of marketing told her audience that they should hold back their investment in social media. Her rationale was that it was still emerging, still evolving, and left a lot of questions about how it could replace advertising in print or on TV. Of course, her bias was that she was in charge of promoting her Direct Response Marketing company that focused on direct mail & TV advertising.

A large consumer service company uses social media to put out free coupons. Every tweet, every Facebook update, & every blog post is about what you can get for free. It started as a vehicle for new customer acquisition, it is now a retention vehicle. I wonder how they are making any money?

The (self proclaimed) maven of social media at a major B2B corporation has taken the 'reality' thing a little too far. She believes in tweeting work & personal stuff in real time. Tweet 1 - This call from hell will never end. Tweet 2 - Thank God for You Tube. Tweet 3 - Join our Innovation Squad at xxxxx2010 - lots of good learning. Tweet 4 - Where's the Xanax? All tweeted within 10 minutes!

The three guiding principles of social media are engagement, listening, & empathy. In addition to adhering to standards and policy, I wish some of these people used common sense in their approach.

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Being 'Persistent' Can Drive Results

Here are some experiences of real email champions. People who have been able to drive real results by staying persistent.

Daryl tracks the opens on his emails – he knows what subject line intrigues the recipient. For the recipients who didn't open, he tries to coax them into his online store with a different invitation. He keeps tab of their interests, gradually trying to convert browsers into repeat browsers and ultimately into buyers.

Michelle sells a consumer product – she sends a nice email to those who have abandoned their shopping cart offering them an incentive to complete the checkout. Not everyone bites but her diligence helps increase the bond with the customer. Those who expressed interest in her product but didn't purchase are put into a special category for additional follow up.

Jeff markets various financial services to his customers – businesses and individuals – offering car loans, college loans, small business loans, home loans and financial planning. It takes a lot of trial and error to learn what his customers want, but Jeff knows that if he’s patient and clearly makes his offer the customers will eventually come around.

Mark invites future brides and grooms into stores to help them build their wedding registry, these soon-to-be couples create wish lists of preferences. Typically, couples receive about half of their wish list; so Mark invites them back to complete their purchases through a special incentive. Not everyone buys everything, but Mark keeps tabs and ensures that his future marketing (across channels) is based on the captured preferences.

Take a lesson from these champions, sometimes marketing is a waiting game and your best luck can turn up by remaining persistent.

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Three Simple Steps Towards Converged Channel Nirvana

Businesses are trying really hard to build up on their branding & loyalty strategy to engage with their consumers. The consumer (both B2B & B2C) is being sought across every channel and many enterprising businesses are trying to make it easy for the consumer to get connected to the business.

Yet the key challenge still lies in how quickly & efficiently the business can acknowledge the consumers transaction. Financial institutions still ask the consumer what language they speak, retailers tend to acknowledge the next to last purchase (usually a month too late), and airlines don't think about the past (they are busy selling seats for the future). It is not that they don't want to, the challenge is that they are trying to figure out three key things - first, how do they recognize the consumer; second, what do they serve up to the consumer; third, what do they do if they mess up?

If you do things well, you can build engagement. The important thing is that you have to do this across channels. The consumer, whether they are window shopping or purchasing doesn't care about the channel that they bought from – if the labels are the same, why does the channel matter?

Today’s consumer has seven possible channels – store or branch, the web, mobile, your call center, print or catalog, kiosks or ATMs and email which may include mobile devices – if not in tandem, these channels can leveraged by the consumer to secure the best deal. Allow your channels work in harmony, focus on the customer and close your loopholes – achieving Channel Nirvana isn’t an easy task, but it can be attained by putting on your ‘consumer hat’ and essentially thinking like the consumer.

Ask yourself these three questions -

1) How would you like to be identified & greeted?

2) What information are you willing to offer to the business & what do you expect in return?

3) What information would you like to be sent to be kept in the loop?

Focus on the consumer, focus on the basics and your path to enlightenment will follow.

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Who Wins in a Channel Conflict?

A big name brick-click-mortar retailer (more bricks, thank clicks) put out an email with an online only 'awesome' offer. If you spent $500 you would receive a $40 gift card, by spending $1000 you would receive $100 and if you spent $2000 you would receive $250. The pot was sweetened by free shipping - I could buy it online & pick it up in the store.

We visited the store to look at the merchandise, liked what we had found online, and as we were ready to leave (planning to buy online and pick-up in-store) the salesperson offered us the opportunity to get the products in-house (right now) at the web price. All along, I had spoken to him about the email-only offer – which he promised that he’d match. After completing our order, he went looking for his manager to get us the $250 gift card – only to discover that he was in no position to give because the items were already deeply discounted. He told us that the maximum he could do was a $100 gift card.

I reminded him of our first conversation and the email-only offer. He explained that they have two types of inventory – one for web and one for store and as a result was unable to process the order and fulfill his original promise. We refused to budge, saying we would return the items.

After about an hour of back and forth, they did the unthinkable – the salesperson discounted each item by 10%, our total spend without taxes was $2200 (discount of $220) and then gave us a $100 gift card. The discount was recorded as a Manager’s Special to save the sale. They did all this so the store employee got credit and the store received revenue – the online sale (in-store pick-up) would have gotten the store/ employee memo credit but no compensation.

As an email marketer, you should make sure that your store employees are aware of the offer and its conditions. This helps in a couple ways, the first is that you avoid situations like mine and you help to strengthen the value of your program – having disharmony leaves the customer guessing if the best price is online or in-store. If possible, work to get the store/ employee some credit (especially in these buy online, pick up in-store situations).

I did do well with an awesome price, but it has only made me vary about how much sweeter the offer could be.

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Can your bank do this?

I recently received a triggered offer from a financial institution with the subject line – Faster than Checks, Better than Cash. The message was promoting their new check card, the content listed card features and how convenient it would be for me.

Turns out that that this offer was triggered by my actions – I made two withdrawals from an ATM close to my home over the course of seven days, typically I withdraw money about once a month. The financial institution had automatically scheduled this campaign for customers who have more than one withdrawal in a two week period. Additionally, the financial institution removes everyone who already has that particular product.

Even the ATM had something interesting to say to me. I was given the option of receiving my receipt electronically. Plus they offered me a coupon to the coffee shop next door.

On a separate occasion, I was waiting in a branch line for about ten minutes. I wasn’t upset and didn’t even comment when it was my turn at the window, but that evening I got an email from the local branch manager – apologizing for my wait and asking me to take a survey. This was also a triggered email, sent by the teller – she recognized me and wanted to acknowledge me by flagging the email marketing platform to send me a message.

These targeted, transactional emails have been a good way for the bank to get their customers to pay attention to their messages. Sending useful information on the heels of an action gets customers to pay more attention to especially when mixed with traditional offers and useful information… see where you can incorporate similar, transactional messages into your program.

Financial institutions are really trying to build relationships with their consumers to know them better & serve them with related products. The challenge is getting all the systems & information to be coordinated in creating targeted offers. If you are an FI and would like to listen to my FI on how they were able to achieve this success - stay in touch, we are planning a virtual seminar in October.

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The Abandoned Cart Email

Most of us know the effectiveness, yet very few follow up on abandoned transactions – even fewer do an adequate job, resulting in fewer conversions and more lost opportunities. In a brief (totally unscientific) three company survey, we found that less than seven percent of abandoning customers call customer service for help. Half of the abandoners come back to the site (tracked thanks to Google Analytics, Omniture, Coremetrics and WebTrends) but only a fraction of those retuning complete the transaction.

When asked why they dropped the transaction, the most common responses (in order of priority) were:

1) Needed to ask a question

2) Got frustrated or lost

3) Comparison shopping

4) Too much information required

5) Technical difficulties

To help with issues, you have to be super responsive and acknowledge the respondent’s issues:

1) Explore real time chat

2) Keep shipping charges competitive (if applicable)

3) Simplify the checkout process – be different from the store but keep it personal

4) Save the shopping cart and follow up with an email

5) Put as much user generated review or content on the web site.

Here are a few suggestions to help get things going:

1) The Abandoned Cart email needs to go out within 48 hours

2) The email should always have a split test – with and without an offer as incentive to complete the transaction,

3) The email should inquire – Could you tell us why you left the cart? Leverage the information, and update customer’s profile.

4) The email should have a simpler call to action and an expiration date – Dear Customer, All you have to do is click on this link, call or print to take to a store/ branch; this offer is valid for (less than five) a few days.

5) Whether you close the transaction or not – update the customer’s preferences with specifics regarding the products or services that they selected.

6) If you have the bandwidth, turn the incomplete transaction over to your customer service team for follow up.

7) Show the customer the value of the offer within your social media channels.

The abandoned cart is a great micro campaign opportunity. You already know the prospect is in the market and you can leverage their specific preferences into a one on one opportunity.

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The Birthday Email

My kids get cards and phone calls from the dentist on their birthday. It is the one place they really don't like to go, yet this call is something that they have begun to look forward to. Usually, this call is preceded by a birthday card, and includes a coupon to a treat at a local fast food place. Not a voice recording but a real person calling to speak to the kids. Very thoughtful of the dentist's office, and something we all appreciate.

I have two main financial institutions - one which serves as a conduit for my paychecks, the latter is where I save for the future. Both of them know my birthday date, in fact they both know a whole lot more, yet it is a credit union where I have less than $250 that doesn't forget to send me an email and a real card each birthday. The card is personally signed by the branch manager.

A major apparel retailer asks those who sign up for their birthday date. This information is then used to target the recipient with a special promotion during their birthday month. While this is good, it is interesting to note that the open rate on these emails goes from an average of 20% to approximately 60%. The next three emails from this retailer to the 'birthday recipient' leads to open rates of between 35 - 50%. Twenty percent of those who open the special promotion actually redeem it. This makes this particular promotion quite special for the retailer. Now you do have a few people that abuse this by creating a birthday to get a discount, but the retailer counters this by trying to get the recipient to provide some preference information.

A jewelry company asks you for your birth month so they can wish you and also talk to you about your special stone. Remarkably, this has done very well for this company. People are intrigued by their stone and what it all means. They read, they click, and they eventually buy.

A men's clothing company used to give out $10 gift cards on people's birthdays. This is a practice that has since been abandoned, as after much testing we realized that most of the recipients were redeeming up to $10 (only). Also, in split tests we found that it didn't boost overall response. This company has since switched to simply wishing the recipient on their special day. The results are almost the same. Now, if you are a higher tier buyer, you get a real birthday card from this company. This is appreciated and acknowledged in subsequent purchases by the customer.

Do remember, if you ask for a birthday date - please be sure you are going to protect the information. Also, if you ask people for the exact date, please use it as you have created an expectation.

I would like to borrow an approach from a Florida newspaper. They put in your luck for the year as part of their message. I know many people who used to cut that out and keep it in their wallet or purse (for the entire year).

From an email marketers perspective, why not ask for the birthday date - include a little snippet about their annual forecast, thank them for their past business, wish them the best, and introduce them to a special landing page where they can find great deals.

Transactional email gives you the opportunity to make things conversational - you ought to leverage it. If nothing else, just wish the recipient - Happy Birthday! It goes a long way in building a relationship. (Many thanks to Siddharth for his help on this blog, happy 18th Siddharth.)

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Very Simple Segmentation Ideas for Retailers

Segmentation Strategy is a pretty common theme among eMarketers; we’ve covered some simple strategies in other posts on the blog – buyers vs. non-buyers, leveraging preference data etc. We recently got a little insight from a marketing manager of an apparel company and his criteria to target buyers:

1) Recency – Check the time associated with the last order and when the recipient became a customer. Their strategy is to flag the person quickly for targeting with more personalized emails.

2) Frequency – Recipients who buy once are encouraged to quickly buy again; two-time buyers are pushed to three etc. Once the customer is over the five-time buyer mark they are put into a special category where the goal becomes creating a dialogue with this customer.

3) Average Order – They evaluate the total revenue and margin from the customer, the higher the values the higher their customer rating. Higher margin customers get five stars and are treated with a lot of respect and work hard to move the high revenue/ lower margin customers to higher margin products.

4) Geography – They realize that certain products don’t sell in certain climates or year-round so timing and geography become key factors. Geography also plays into their timing, they have seen an up-tick in sales from recipients shopping at work around 11:00AM and 3:00PM, so they release based on time zones to grab the multi-tasking worker.

5) Payment Method – Customers purchasing by check or PayPal are treated differently than those who pay by credit card (and not all credit cards are created equally.)

Just a few items to think about while developing the right mix for you to create interactive conversations with your customers…

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User Behavior Triggered Filtering Coming Soon to Hotmail

Hotmail will be introducing a behavior-based filtering system that uses the individual user’s behaviors to influence the delivery of email. This type of behavior or interaction-based filtering has been talked about in the industry recently as a means to help alleviate spam in user’s inboxes.

So this is not just about showing up in Junk Mail. This is about all those unopened messagages in your inbox.

Hotmail plans on looking at metrics to help determine where an incoming email should be placed, including:
§ Emails that are read, then deleted
§ Emails that are deleted without being read
§ Emails that are replied to
§ The frequency of receiving & reading emails

While this new ISP trend of behavior-based filtering is ramping up, it’s a good time for eMarketers to take a hard look at their email programs. Now more than ever, its important to make sure that your emails are timely and relevant to the recipient. Apply behavior-based segmenting to target those who are ‘Active’ more frequently than those who are ‘Inactive’.

Devise a plan to engage those ‘Inactive’ recipients rather than mail them week after week with no response. Think about a dual strategy - one for your responders & one for your non-responders. The non-responder segment needs to be activated to not hurt your overall chances of being delivered.

Email relevance is driven by personalization - real one to one. Now, Hotmail is going to monitor how an individual accepts your message - it's back to one-to-one.

Stay tuned for more information regarding the Hotmail Behavior Triggered Filtering. For more information, read our partner, Return Path’s article on Media Post.

Many thanks to Sharmila Sorenson & Praveen Aggarwal for this timely update.

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Segmentation is About Precision

Precision is a key tactic to creating relevance & engagement. To achieve this precision, you have to focus on your segmentation strategy; here are five points to drive a successful segmentation strategy:

1) Select recipients based on past behavior – including buyer/ non-buyer; RFM Score; previous responder/ non-responder; just completed a purchase, return, ATM transaction, etc.

2) Direct recipients to focused landing pages – perform multivariate testing, creating at least two offers in each email and then testing what works better. If your technology can support it, create dynamic landing pages where you can test more variables.

3) Look at your results in Real Time – Watch how campaigns are performing during the transmission process, refine your results and if you can, make small tweaks (i.e. live A/B testing.)

4) Test different Images – A simple picture change could make all the difference in recipient engagement, swap it out and see how it enhances your results.

5) Words are Powerful – Make sure your call to action is clear, test pricing variables, end dates or other words that may drive people to complete a particular transaction.

If you were to group your recipients into three broad categories - you would have your digital channels, your traditional channels, & those who interact on both channels. Think about how you can drive people between your traditional & digital channels.

Also segment your social 'elite' or influencers into tactful segments that can help spread your brand message.Email is a very powerful tool; you just need to use it correctly to achieve one-to-one marketing.

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