You Have to Survey your Consumer

Real user feedback continues to drive consumer opinion. You should stay in touch with your consumer to solicit their feedback – positive and negative (so you can address issues).

Surveying your consumer about their transaction experiences is vital. What businesses need to do is to incorporate surveying into their process and use the data collected to build up relevant content.

Put in place a plan to ask for feedback as part of a follow up campaign. Request your consumers to provide you with testimonials. To leverage the power of digital do it quickly, track their responses, and don’t forget to get them to recommend you on social media channels.

Also put in place a plan to follow up with your consumers. You have to thank them for providing the feedback. You also need to make sure that you address any issues they have brought up to you. In the spirit of engagement, it is a good idea to thank your consumers for their feedback as you improve your process.

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Not all Emails are Alike

Capturing an email address is not a science, but getting a customer to respond to your offers is. How can we capture a ‘good’ email address, one that will respond to your offers by opening, clicking and ultimately purchasing the product or service you are selling?

This whole process starts at the point where the email address is collected. There are a few best practices that we can implement to help make sure the person signing up for your emails will know what to expect from you.

• First, give a few simple reasons why they should sign up. This reinforces the value of getting your emails.

• Show them a sampling of the different types of emails to expect. This shows the relevance of your offers you will be sending them.

• In addition to email address, ask them for more information relevant to your marketing efforts on your subscribe page – product preferences, gender, favorites, etc. Use this information to add relevance and personalization to their offers.

• Once they subscribe, immediately ask them to add your sending email address to their safe sender list. Don’t assume they know what this is or why they should do it. Explain the importance and how to go about adding you.

• Send an email to them right away to welcome them. This is a time when they will most recognize your emails as they just signed up to receive them. It’s also a good opportunity to present them with an offer. This first email will identify any bad email addresses too.

• Start the regular email schedule immediately – don’t wait a month or two – they will forget who you are or that they even signed up.

• Periodically send them a survey asking them again for information to update the preferences you’ve captured. This will keep the data on your list fresh and up-to-date.

Using these best practices will help to get ‘good’ subscribers. Next step is to make sure you keep them engaged with timely and relevant offers!

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Email Collection @ the Point of Service

How successful are you at collecting emails? How much does it cost you to get a consumers email id? How much more information do you ask the consumer while procuring their email? Does your consumer provide you with additional information? Do you ask for other contact information?

All of these are very important considerations as you try to step up on your email collection and engagement strategies.

I reached out to a number of companies trying to gauge their success and also understand their process of collection.

The responses I got were - lousy, average, & exceptional. Email collection ranged from 5% to over 90%! This is too vast a difference.

The worst answer here was from people who simply didn’t measure collection at their different points of service.

To do a good job, you need to train your points of service in the art of email collection. You should share success stories and metrics with your collection points to enhance your email collection process.

You need to consider coming up with succinct scripts for each of your channels. These scripts need to be natural and engaging to get the consumer to be more responsive.

Your email list will continue to churn – you need to make sure that you are adding names and most importantly adding positive engagement.

Want to know how to drive 95% collection?

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Give Consumers Value for their Email Address

Collecting email addresses is an ongoing challenge for marketers. This is because most people automatically think when you ask for their email address, that they will get a barrage of unwanted emails from you. Thus, it is important to give the customer valuable reasons as to why they should give you their email address.

Your website is usually the first place you look to collect email addresses. Tell the subscriber exactly why they should sign up for email and what message they should expect.

A second place is your front line customer service staff. If you were to ask your front-line people why a customer should provide their e-mail – you will be surprised by the amount of different answers you get. You should make sure that Customer Service knows why a customer should provide an email address, both for the customer's benefit and for the benefit of the company.

If you're not already giving customers the value reasons why they should sign up, what can you do? Write down ten good reasons why people should subscribe to your newsletter; then post it on your website, list it for your front line staff and share it with your co-workers.

Try to give your customers/prospects something of true value in exchange for their email address. Maybe provide a sneak preview of a new product, a member’s only sale, valuable information, or a discount coupon that can be used immediately. Convince your co-workers and front line staff of the importance of e-mail address collection, perhaps even creating an incentive for the employee collecting the most addresses in a month.

If you can show your customers the value they gain from signing up for your email, and then deliver that value, you'll find those objections of giving up the email address easily handled.

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Test, Adjust, & Repurpose Subject Lines

It might seem like common sense, but the number of marketers who come up with subject lines as an after thought is astonishing. The subject line of your email is a very important piece of your email campaign. It is the first thing your customer or prospect sees and is usually what motivates them to open and read the rest of your mail.

The subject line is also one of the easiest things to test in email. There is no hassle of creating new content, just splitting up a portion of your audience and trying out different subject lines to see which one gets the best reaction.

A best practice is to try out three different subject lines. Try one that is informative, one that is esoteric, and one that is full of intrigue. Try subjects with personalization, and ones without. Whatever you do, make them ‘active.’

Send out the test and see which subject drives more opens or more sales. Then use that subject line for the rest of your campaign. As cost effective as it is to send emails, you can't afford to not test subject lines on a regular basis to see what will work best for your brand.

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How to Revive Your List

A multi-channel cataloger offered its house-file an incentive to come shop – web, call center, or store. Buyers were given a 10 - 15% off coupon, non-buyers were offered a little more. Everybody won something, a few won a lot, a handful really made out. You had to tell them a little bit about yourself, and of course, all offers were e-mailed to you.

Here are the sequence of events that created the interaction.

You got a direct mail piece at that provided you with an access code with a timed incentive to respond. You went online – input your offer code & were e-mailed a confirmation link.

This confirmation link asked you to provide preferences – seven basic questions & a big thank you with a coupon you could redeem immediately.

The impact this had was phenomenal. Pre ‘list revival’ the catalogers e-mail list was 20% of the house-file, they averaged less than 5% open rates, with an even more dismal click-through. Post ‘list revival’ the cataloger had more than doubled the e-mail list. Also their open rates quadrupled & click through’s improved.

The result of all of this was better segmentation, targeted messaging, & a boost in overall sales. More importantly, a random survey of more than 1000 new customers revealed that they felt they were part of the ‘club.’ The offers they had received were exactly what they wanted!

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Three-Step Mantra: Seek, Ask, & Serve

Find people fast, know what they want, & serve them quickly. This three-step mantra is the key to interactive marketing success. It is the best way to engage your consumer as it brings together product (or service) with consumer need at the time of need by the consumer.

Finding people fast or connecting consumers to your organization translates to having a good search program. Make sure that your ‘key-words’ or phrases are clear to all who communicate your brand. These words should be used in all your communication collateral. This approach needs to be leveraged into all channels – traditional direct, traditional digital, and emerging interactive channels like mobile and social media.

Knowing what people want translates into an effective and active preference center that pulls data from multiple sources. At the end of the day it should try to reflect the consumers aspirations. This should include the information the consumer provides about themselves, plus their transaction history.

Your preference center shouldn’t just focus on one channel. You should collect information across multiple channels and most importantly you should have the ability to either go to a central repository in real time or be as current as you possibly can.

To serve consumers quickly means you have to leverage all your channels or agents to get the message to the consumer expeditiously. This means that you use email, mobile, social media, self-service (ATM’s or kiosks), people, or even physical location channels.

Don’t overwhelm the consumer by badgering them with irrelevance (the wrong offers), or with the exact same message (duplication) across multiple channels. Instead learn to tell a story (across multiple channels) to convince and then convert the consumer.

Ultimate Nirvana is the synchronization of this three-step mantra to drive an interactive conversation so you truly engage the consumer on all fronts.

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Defining Email Benchmarks: What is a good open rate?

Should it be above 20%? Obviously 30% is better, and those who are getting above 50% are certainly more engaged. This question about the ideal open rate continues to intrigue many an email marketer.

To find the ideal open rate, you need to consider a number of different factors.

Start by establishing a baseline for your campaigns. Take all your campaigns across the previous year and list your opens as a percentage of mails delivered (removing all the bounces & blocks).

Now look at the frequency of your campaigns – is it one a week, more than one a week, or two a month? The more your frequency, the more likely it is for your open rate to be lower.

Next consider the type of message being sent. The three key types of messages are transactional, promotional, & informational.

Your message could be initiated by a consumer transaction – these tend to have the highest open rates; perhaps it is promotional – these tend to vary depending on the type and frequency of your email messages; it could be informational – now the open rates here depend on the quality of information you have been providing. If you have done a good job to engage your consumers in the past, they are more likely to pay attention to your campaigns (higher open rate).

Use past history to come up with a fair open rate (if you can’t just consider taking a good SWAG) for each of the type of campaigns. Now use this open rate as a benchmark to gauge the success of every email campaign.

One formula I recommend using is to try and gauge email open rate success over a period of ‘x’ number of campaigns. So if a consumer stops opening my emails for five to six consecutive campaigns – I go into reactivation mode.

Another recommendation I make is to leverage technology to combine your message types. I prefer making offers that are relevant in my transactional emails. In addition to that I try to make every email informational so it is not just about an offer.

Social media goes a long way in creating engaged email users. There are multiple things you can do to spruce up engagement – before a campaign, during a campaign, & post campaign.

Whatever your open rate – try to strive to make it better month over month. Also, use this metric (and others) to educate your team on email success.

Want to drive 80% plus open rates? (send me an email)

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Don't Fear Reviews!

One of the biggest fears of creating a social media presence is the thought of negative reviews. Organizations are concerned that their brand will get tarnished as consumers will complain and they will be unable to handle to the tumult of the negative impact.

Based on the experience of many companies who are socially present – online reviews are good for your business and the ‘supposed onslaught’ of negativity has yet to overwhelm anyone.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Most reviews will be positive – people will take time to share what they liked
• Feedback that is positive, negative, and neutral will make things authentic
• You cannot hide from negative reviews and you would rather have them on your own site
• It gives you and your social friends an opportunity to beat up on those who are unreasonable
• Bad feedback is an opportunity to fix things and turn into a positive story.

Reviews keep the dialogue going and are really the foundation of good social marketing. Consumers buy based on word of mouth - reviews are the best source of that function.

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Are You Really Connected to Your Consumers?

I know that everyone has had a poor customer service experience at some point; I have had my share – my cell phone provider, an online clothier, & my ‘favorite’ airline.

Outside of the huge amount of hold time, my greatest complaint had to do with lack of integration. In each instance, the “send an email” feature never connected with my profile, I never got a response and my email (the first contact) couldn’t be accessed by the CSR when I called to follow up.

By contrast, I was pleasantly surprised when I made a call at lunch to enroll in a special incentive program. I initially tried to enroll online, but kept getting an error. So I naturally waited two days, and reluctantly called into the customer service department expecting a hassle. I was completely wrong, the CSR addressed me by name (I had entered my SSN) and knew that I had tried to enroll online Tuesday evening. He helped with my selections and even provided information that wasn’t given in my original notice.

So what makes this experience so different? CONNECTIVITY – knowing that your customers/ prospects have logged in, attempted to access your product or service and then helping them correct the issue.

So I ask, at what point in the bell curve does the cost/ time of updating/ integrating your multiple channels offset the attrition of customer dissatisfaction?

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5 things NOT to do with your Campaigns

Here are five things you should not do when it comes to your e-mail marketing campaigns:

• Procrastinate – Don’t wait to send out your e-mail communiqués. Bundling them with timeliness & urgency increases the value of what the recipient thinks of them. Have a sense of panic to ‘greet the guest’ as though they have just walked into your front door. If you keep them waiting, they will wander around, & eventually drift away.

• Letting them help themselves – Do not have one big page and expect to have them tell you all. Structure the questions in an engaging conversation. Ask them a little bit at a time and keep your questions open – that way you are not leaving out any important information.

• Send them printed material – If they haven’t asked for it, don’t send it to them. In a survey of more than 300 catalog web sites – I found it impossible to just sign up for e-mail. I basically had to sign up for the catalog or direct mail piece – only then would I get an e-mail.

• Put the ‘entire’ offer in the Subject Line – People like intrigue. A short subject line can offer a certain amount of enticement to bring people into your web site.

• Don’t ask them to become ‘Fans’ or ‘Followers’ – Give them a reason to become members of your social media family. Just asking them to join is not going to serve anyone. Offer intrigue or an incentive – draw them into your social parlor & engage them to keep them there.

So to rise above all – learn to create dialogues with your clients and prospects. Your employees, your customers, your prospects, & your opinion is what matters most. By you creating interactive conversations – you can leverage first hand research into actionable strategies & tactics to drive ROI.

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Improve Deliverability: Track by Domain

Emails sent don’t translate into emails delivered. While many marketers are successful at getting most of their list to the right destination, a few emails don’t make it or almost make it.

Here are some thoughts on what to do while analyzing your email inbox success results or conversely the bounce rate.

While overall bounce rate gives you an indication of how your campaign deliverability performed it is more important to check how the different segments are doing.

Start by segmenting & looking at your results by domain. Track the performance of each of your top domains to identify deliverability, open, and click through trends. If you notice a high bounce rate or lower open and click rate than normal, you may have a delivery issue with that domain.

Next look at your bounce logs to find the codes returned by the ISP’s. If any indicate blocking, contact the ISP to request removal from their block list. If you don’t have access to your bounce logs, you can still request removal from the ISP, but some may require the bounce codes in order to process your request.

Domain tracking is vital for a number of reasons.

First, you can focus in on your larger domains. So if Yahoo, Hotmail, & Comcast make up most of your list - you can spend more of your time trying to ensure smoother transmission to these domains.

Second, you can track if a particular smaller domain is having major problems. If AOL was less than 10% of your list but had 50% deliverability, you can work to correct this before this issue carries over to other domains.

Third, you can keep picking up reasons why you were blocked at a particular domain and apply the best practices learned to your other domains.

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Five Simple Ideas to Facilitate Social Interaction

With the buzz around social media marketing and the need to go into the life of the consumer, marketers are trying their hardest to get included. There is so much talk about inclusion and about following that marketers are forgetting to look at some fundamental issues.

If you want to get included on the Facebook page of the consumer, it is very much like asking the consumer to invite you into their living room. The consumer needs to feel comfortable about including you before they open you up to themselves. The same thing applies to Twitter; about getting the consumer to add you to their safe list via email; or even getting them to visit your blog.

You need to engage the consumer with something that the consumer has an interest in and not just expect that the consumer will blindly follow you.

Here are five simple ideas to help facilitate engagement –

You have to improve your segmentation, you can't say the same thing to everybody

You have to use active copy, it has to be intriguing to draw people in

You have to achieve real personalization, name calling will not cut it

You have to look hard at your numbers, if something doesn’t work don’t do it

You have to carry on a conversation, that means listening & speaking

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Three Things to Improve Campaign Engagement

You can improve the performance of your email program by looking at three things.

First you need to look at your results. Look and see how you are performing over time. Look at all your metrics - list growth, bounces, opens, clicks, & conversions. Also, don't forget to take a look at the bad clicks (your unsubscribes) and your spam complaints. You should also learn to look at your results not just by campaign, but you should be able to gauge your success over a period of time. For example, how long before you start getting concerned about a consumer (who was previously engaged) that is not paying attention to your campaigns? Depending on what I am trying to promote, my 'length of time' varies. For product sales from my regular buyers, I track performance over a six week period; for information only messages I get concerned when someone goes 10 (weeks) campaigns without an open. An objective view of these results should help you track & adjust your campaign strategy.

Second, you need to stay connected to your team. Your team includes people & channels. If you have a call center or 'brick & mortar' people - you need to ask them about the campaigns you are sending out. See if they are interested in your campaigns, are they aware of what you are saying, & if they are listening to what your consumers might be thinking about the campaigns. I usually recommend making a small mistake in your test copy. The first employee that finds the mistake can be rewarded with recognition or a small gift. Interestingly, you might find more than 'one mistake' in your campaign. And most importantly, you now have a pool of advisors to help you think about your campaign strategy.

Third, you need to keep in touch with your consumers. Why not host a webinar for a select group of consumers and ask them about your email campaigns. Show them your designs, your call to actions, and your offers. Solicit their input as you try to define your campaign execution strategy. Your consumers are the ultimate test bed, and the advice they will give you will go a long way in improving the engagement level of your program.

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Do you know the seven ways to tie a scarf?

If you can intrigue the interest of a consumer, you have a better chance of engaging them in a dialogue about your company. Each of these questions below have been used by real email marketers to get the consumer to think, learn, & get engaged. These are not tricks, but relevant ways to engage the consumer.

Do you know the seven ways to tie a scarf?
This intriguing offer was served up as a cross sell to buyers who had just added a blouse to their shopping basket. Every knot and style was described on different pages featuring two - three different styled scarf's. More than 40% of those who came to this page perused the collection & more than half of those who perused the collection actually added at least one product.

Do you know the 10 most overlooked tax deductions?
A favorite during tax time, this financial institution served up this useful information to their consumers. As the consumer reviewed the 10 tax deductions, the financial institution highlighted some of their services for the consumer. The financial institution tracked the click-throughs and then followed up with those consumers through three channels - email, direct mail, & phone calls. The financial institution was no longer 'phishing' - they were actually communicating offers of relevance.

Do tomatoes really grow upside down?
You have seen the ads and you see so many 'kits' that offer success. A small nursery offered this as a subject line to engage their email list. Not only did many people pay attention to the campaign, many people purchased related products & most importantly many more chimed in with their own success stories. This company is using this approach to build up on their social network following.

Twenty five things not to do on a road trip!
This subject line from a travel company was a multi-channel classic. It started of in print and only listed the 10 things you should not do while driving. They then told the reader that if they wanted to know the other 15 things, the reader could find those in the email newsletter. They got a lot of people to sign up for email campaigns. They also got a lot of their list to pay attention. They even followed it up with a campaign to their direct mail list to opt out of direct mail (go green, save dough) & pay attention to their email newsletters.

Three places not to look for consumer reviews!
A popular comparison site put this message out to let their list know of certain types of sites that get paid for 'positive' reviews. The campaign actually started off as a banner ad campaign on the open web as this company solicited email ids.

You have to keep things interesting and use the Paul Harvey approach to engage the consumer. Tell them a little bit of the story and if it is interesting, the consumer will follow you to listen to the rest of the story. Don't forget to ask the consumer to stay connected with you.

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How to Create Consumer Connections?

Businesses focus a great deal on converged channel marketing, adding value, and aiding consumer insight. Here are a couple of simple examples that encapsulate all three principles.

If you are in the business of lending money, you make money when you can get people to borrow from you. Rather than just talk about your great rates, why not host workshops on improving credit scores? Teach your consumer how to read their credit report, how to fix errors, & the value of a good credit score. It will help you in three specific ways - first, you will find it easier to engage the consumer in an educational workshop; second, you will help them pre-qualify and save time when they are actually applying for a loan; third, your consumer will appreciate this enough to share it with their friends.

If someone makes a purchase of a product or a service from you - set off a welcome stream of email & social media messages. Thank them, seek their feedback, & then offer them tips on how to make their purchase more effective. Solicit their opinion on the purchase by asking them for their tips as well. Be sure to include their suggestions in your future campaigns and on your product review pages. Make them your brand ambassadors.

Host experts in discussions on your products or services. Be sure to include real customers as part of your panel as people like to listen to real people. It doesn't have to be done live or in person, it can also be recorded as voice mail, video, or simple words that are short and sweet. Your focus really should be on empowering your consumer and providing them with all the know-how they need to make an informed decision. This adds value, increases the consumer’s knowledge and extends the value of a product previously purchased.

Maybe your products and services don’t warrant a special seminar series, but I’m certain that you have FAQs that could be packaged in a specialty communication – or better yet a Q&A that you could record as a podcast. Feature a company expert in a Q&A interview session, use colloquial phrasing and real-life examples to illustrate your top FAQs, the value added will be huge in the eyes of the consumer.

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Cause Marketing Can Drive Yearlong Results: Here are 11 Ways

October is breast cancer awareness month and marketers across the globe highlight the awareness. Awareness of the cause helps in many ways - it leads to check ups that could be timely, it helps in soliciting donations that lead to research, and it gets the consumer involved. Pink ribbons come out to raise awareness and organizations across the globe get involved. Getting people aware will go a long way towards a cure.

Many marketers are sincere in their messaging as they promise to donate a percentage of their revenue towards the cause. Cause marketing does work. Remember, October isn't the only month to promote your cause. Here are 11 things marketers could do to truly leverage cause into their marketing mix:

1 - Make sure the cause is visible. Don't make the callout to the cause hard to find within the message. If the consumer can't see it nothing will happen.

2 - Make sure your organizations contribution is clear. Tell the consumer what you intend to do even if it is just that you are simply raising awareness.

3 - Make sure your messaging is empathetic. Remember you have to connect with the consumer and be intriguing enough to grab their attention.

4 - Make sure you dedicate prime real estate on at least some of your messages. Many organizations will slip in a pink ribbon into some corner of their campaigns and it is very hard to see that.

5 - Make sure you test your cause landing page for intuitiveness. If people click through to the landing page, make sure that they know what to do next.

6 - Make sure you follow up after the 'click-through' or 'donation.' Send the consumer a thank you message thanking them for their involvement towards the cause.

7 - Make sure you keep them updated on your 'cause.' Start by segmenting those who have clicked-through or expressed interest into a 'keep abreast' category. Now try to stay in touch with these consumers about how you are doing with your cause. Use significant milestones as a means to let the rest of your consumers know about your progress as well. This might get more people to contribute towards your cause.

8 - Make sure you do this across all your channels. The web - email, your site, social media; your store or branch and your people; your self-service kiosks (a hint to airlines - many of you have upgraded your kiosk software this month, yet there is nothing about the cause even though your flight attendants are selling 'pink' drinks for a premium).

9 - Make sure you do this throughout the year. Your organization surely makes philanthropic contributions and you need to highlight your 'softer' side to your consumers throughout the year.

10 - Make sure you get your team involved. Ask other members for their ideas and stories. Real stories are empathetic and can drive engagement.

11 - Make sure you are sincere. A CEO of a major food supplier chuckled about the 'organic crap' that consumers purchase from him - not good. A President of a pet supply company raised money for horses killed in a fire, and then used most of that money to purchase expensive personal items - busted by both the IRS & his consumers.

I got an opportunity to tour the Baltimore Ravens facility and listen to their owner Steve Bisciotti. I was blown away by Steve's sincerity. When he talks about being committed to his community, his entire organization follows - the success of his Ravens is not just driven by wins and profits, but by the impact his organization can make on those who are less fortunate. There are many others like Steve we can emulate.

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Visit Purchase Repeat

We pay so much attention to converting a prospect into a customer – contests, discounts, specials, free shipping etc. all in the hopes of having a new person walk through the door. Following conversion, there is often a disproportionate shift in retaining the customer. Think of the number of one-time buyers you have; maybe these ideas could help increase their likelihood of re-purchase:

1) A simple thank you email goes a long way; thank the customer and ask them to come back.

2) A survey with and without an incentive, asking the customer about the transaction (and addressing any issues) does well in keeping your brand top of mind.

3) Send a reminder X days/ weeks after the purchase, reminding the customer of their experience and inviting them to revisit.

4) If you are selling financial services – it’s important to explain the benefits of the purchase/ investment made; give the account holder the opportunity to invest again.

5) Mix channels – send a postcard or call them to take measure of the purchase.

6) Solicit their feedback and leverage on a testimonial page.

7) Insert a copy of the email that made inspired their purchase, include your contact information and encourage the recipient to contact you with any suggestions.

8) Give a super deal on their third (fourth or fifth) transaction.

9) Go back in time and remember what they did a long time ago. Your consumer will appreciate it.

I'm Loyal

I travel a lot – presenting best practices and meeting great email marketers across the globe. I try to be loyal to certain hotels (not just chains), restaurants (going back to the same place), airlines and car companies. I do this for two main reasons – the first is the assurance that I will be treated better for my loyalty, the other are the points (to travel more.) These intangible and tangible benefits help people pay attention and insure active, future involvement.

As marketers we need to focus on getting customers to repeat their purchase behavior.

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