Do not do these five things with your social media

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 these experts 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 - '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. And not monitoring if these games are actually being used. Their focus isn't about engagement, and they are certainly not accountable.

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.

4 - Focus on quantity of fans & followers, versus quality of each connection. List growth at any cost without consideration of quality of the list or what was given to get people to sign up.

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?

The so called experts 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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Financial Institutions Have to Step Up to Social Media

I don’t remember when I got my first piggy bank, but I must have been really young. I do remember my first savings account, I was in second grade and a bank representative came to our school to talk about savings, I still have that account, and a couple more.

Times have changed and now with the growing number of banks, their marketers are having to compete with others for attention… sound familiar? This competition has spawned some interesting approaches; one that I recently heard of was a bank that sponsored a concert targeting teens. More than 400 teens attended the concert; but only 24 of them opened savings accounts (the point of the event.) Unfortunately there was little connection between the bank and the event.

One of my neighbors runs marketing for a credit union; his team is part of a coalition focused on educating youth on the virtues of saving. Their site is phenomenal – it has calculators, games, stories, testimonials and quizzes to engage users; but they get maybe a dozen hits a month are will likely shut down the site.

The concert and the site are creative approaches but they miss the mark when it comes to association – none of the teens targeted wanted to be forced to go to a non-traditional channel. One possible way to strengthen the connection would be through the social networking power of Facebook… yes, it’s a non-traditional channel for some marketers, but the target market is very familiar with the site.

Ease into the process, maybe start with advertising within your zip codes. Another approach would be to create a bank’s profile to post upcoming events, tips etc.

Be Prepared
The immediate reaction of most, is a negative perception of Facebook, particularly that of upper management. When you present your case be sure that you have a privacy policy, a procedure document, and a plan to engage the young consumer.

My neighbor has since moved his educational site over to social media. He has put all of this information up on a blog and drives traffic to his social site by engaging with youth on Facebook, via Twitter, and a few people do drop in via MySpace.

By having your page on Social Media, you’re marketing to you future customer, your emerging market … maybe without cost. Sure there are risks in this approach but it is becoming even more mainstream and financial institutions cannot sit on the sidelines. Just be careful, choose your friends wisely and make sure your offering is in line with your brand after all, it’s just another medium.

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A simpler way to overhaul your email program

We hear of so many suggestions, both practical and impractical, about how we can totally overhaul our email marketing program. While it is tough for us to make too many changes in one swoop, it is also equally hard to measure the success of change unless you do something dramatic – so today’s post is around how to find that balance.

Before making dramatick changes, start by picking a few of your past campaigns. Pick ones that you liked that might not have been star performers, now overhaul them – the look, copy, call to action and landing page… make it stand out. Now take this revitalized (“NEW”) campaign and send it to three targeted segments:

1) Your First Responders: These are people who respond to your queries, your surveys and regularly provide you with feedback. These are people you may have written to, thanking them for their previous ideas. Let them in on the secret (sort of); sending them a simple note – tell them you truly need their feedback to improve your campaigns and your offers. Tell them you would like for them to receive a special set of emails each week, one “NEW” and one regular one, and that you would like to get their feedback on these campaigns – stress the importance.

2) Your Middle of the Road: These are the people who regularly open, sometimes click and occasionally convert. Target a random list of them with your “NEW” communiqués, keep this group small at first and grow the number of people you target as you are able to get more confident with your messaging. Don’t tell them what you’re doing, just watch.

3) Your Dead File: These are your non-responders, those you had lost all hope for. In addition to targeting them with the NEW creative you should even get a little bolder with your subject lines. If you can convert any one of these people it is a bonus.

Try this approach for updating in 2011; I’ve found that the ideas are always there, the biggest hold-up is the who we should target. Use this strategy to implement any new ideas you have. Remember, successful email marketing is about creating a dialogue with your customers and prospects – so pick a group of people and just do it!

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How to run an internal contest to grow your digital list

A small cataloger offered its employees $700 a month, and a grand prize of $5000. The rules were simple – every month the rep to collect the maximum number of digital ids won $400, second place was $200, third place $100. The rep with the most collected over the course of the year received $5000.

Of course, there was a catch, there was a group goal. The rep only got the $5000 if the group goal was met. Everyone worked hard together; there were training meetings and “rah-rah” sessions. The program was advertised to the reps via email. Not their work email but their personal email.

The program cost $21,000, they had 30 seats and 92 employees over the course of a year. They collected 564,615 legitimate email addresses at 0.26 cents per… 32 employees earned the incentives, the call center was transformed but the customers were the ultimate winners.

I have seen the same approach work with a credit union. Their member base was over 200,000. They had 12,000 email addresses. A systematic incentive program like the above has them with more than 80,000 email addresses and more than 40,000 members signed up for e-statements.

Education, empowerment and getting selling your employees will drive longer term benefits rather than running specials for customers.

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Auditing the Email Collection Process

I got an opportunity to audit five merchants with their email collection process - cupcakes, shoes, jeans, handbags and goggles. I was quite impressed; every single one of these merchants had a sign-up sheet for email. Three of these merchants even had really cute sign-up cards – cards that gave you great reasons to sign up.

The employees I interacted with asked me for an email id. Crisp, clear and directly – their point of service systems even had a field for the collection. Despite these items there was a serious problem, each seemed like a cold exchange.

I believe these merchants missed out on a valuable opportunity to interact with me. After having received my email id, they should have tried to sell the program to me. It would have been easy for them to create a sense of expectation. Those few moments could have resulted in me treating their communiqués a little differently, creating higher open rates and better overall conversion. Their email marketing managers would have been thrilled.

A suggestion to email marketing managers, train the store/ branch employee – provide them with conversational scripts that will request the id and give them ways to plug your program (after the sale.) More importantly, ask those employees to share their thoughts back with you – issues, remarks and ideas. Keep these employees in the loop, have a call with store/ branch managers, you will do a better job creating a program and maybe raise your click-throughs and conversions.

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Five MUST Do's for Digital Marketers

1) You MUST grow your list
Look back at your list over the past five years (or longer) and see how many new names you have added. Look at your direct mail file. I have checked with financial institutions, catalogs, retailers, travel, entertainment or other companies to find a common thread – the average percentage of names for which people have email ids is less than 35%. Meaning you have another 65-something percent to tap into. More importantly you have to look for constructive ways to grow your list. This means every name counts, so reduce churn and get creative. Your entire team needs to work on helping you grow the list.

2) You MUST know more
About your customers and prospects, that is. Just having an email association is not enough. You need to survey your list at different stages – during the sign-up process, various transaction points as well as stages of inactivity. You need to keep this information in a preference table and also build up operational preferences. Operational preferences are tracking information about a particular recipient – whether they open your emails, they click, or they simply haven't cared. Your approach to asking questions needs to be direct and beneficial; put on your own user hat and see what is really helpful.

3) You MUST interact (across all channels)
No more left hand right hand dislocation – your recipient is on the receiving end of a number of different communiqués. They expect you to make sure they are served appropriately. There is no channel conflict in their mind and you better treat them that way. Some of my friends have started splitting parts of a story across their paper communiqués and online messages… their recipients are beginning to realize that it is the same company that is communicating seamlessly across multiple channels. During a subsequent post, we will discuss ways to make sure your paper communiqués are revered by your recipients.

4) You MUST sizzle
The three Cs – Creative, copy and overall content; focus on what is inside your newsletter or email offer. Recipients are expecting you to grab their attention, keep them tuned-in and steer them towards the offer. Depending on the size of your email program you can have a person or a team dedicated to the online media. You can leverage the same information you put together across other Web 2.0 channels. Think about every email as a piece of art – take time to put it together, and you will see your efforts pay off. The email channel has arrived.

5) You MUST make it to the party
As recipients, we often take deliverability for granted; we expect you to show up in our inbox. As email marketers, deliverability should be monitored and perfected daily. Your other customer touchpoints should be trained on what bounces and deliverability means so they can carry out intelligent conversations with intended recipients. You are legitimate, your offer is legitimate, and you have taken time to put together the offer – make sure you make it to the inbox.

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12 Simple and Effective Segmentation Ideas

'Email is cheap!' 'Social media is free!'

These two reasons is why many marketers are forced by their management (the ones making these statements) to send as many messages to the same set of consumer as possible.

There is value in focusing, personalizing, and reducing the amount of messages sent to consumers. Don't send everybody the same offer, don't mail them all at the same time either. Here are a dozen ideas to help you with simple segmentation.

• Message Type: From a technical perspective you can split your group into those who want HTML, text, rich text or those who enjoy social content. Social content includes videos, images, podcasts, and direct links to social media pages. What is wise in this process is to keep a little tab at the bottom asking the reader if they would like to see what the other types of content look like.

• Timing: Timing is an important aspect as well. Stagger your emails by time zones and, if your technology allows, ask your user what time they would like to receive your alerts. A number of marketers are experimenting with sending people emails the same time they typically read them. The lesson to learn from this strategy is that this may not be as predictable.

• Operational Segmentation: It is good to target people right after the order process or even after an incomplete transaction. It is also useful to target people differently if they have not responded to your emails.

• Transactional Segmentation: Track how often people open, click or respond to your emails. Leverage this information into the emails you are sending them. You can build a repository of preferences based on their click throughs. The number of times they click on a column or an offer over time is also going to help you with the personalized offers you generate for them.

• Buyer/ non-buyer: This is a natural; make it better by breaking the non-buyers into those who have opened (once, twice or more), those who have clicked and those who have not opened. Same thing with buyers, split them into product areas as you try to coax them into other interests.

• Source-Code Segmentation: This is a good way to see where people came from and where you can lead them. People don't just sign up for email – they may have come from a variety of sources, from an inquiry, purchase, directly from your website. They could have found you as the result of a search, perhaps a contest entry, partnership, append or perhaps from “Brad” their representative (call center or branch).

• The “Brad” Segment: A number of companies perform micro-segmentation by targeting their customers or prospects through the various representatives that work for them. This keeps it personal; this approach can help you begin, establish a relationship and then move into your mainstream campaigns – it is a good way to open the door.

• The Betting Pool: This split is a way to get your employees involved, choose copy, creative or just subject lines and have people bet on the one that will do better – split the list and keep the excitement (involvement) going.

• Exclusive/ Top Dogs: Of course one of your strategies should be to move people from lower performing segments to higher performing segments. Take your first responders, let them know that they are part of this group and give them advance notice of the communiqué.

• Sniff and Pow: This is an interesting one, track what people do on your site, and then target them with offers that are specific to what they are looking at.

• Tuesday/ Thursday Segment: This is also useful; my friend Christine used to target her list with four versions on Tuesday and then target the entire list with the best performing email on Thursday. Of course, times have changed and now her Tuesday/ Thursday test is done within a few hours.

If all else fails there is always the A:B Random split – if you’re just starting out or have limited information/ time why not split the list into two groups to see which one performs better.

If you have limited data, improve your sign up process, ask your users about their preferences – simple preferences ranging from types of communiqués they would like to receive from you to more complex preferences of how they use your product/ service. This forms the foundation for a lot of the personalization that is possible.

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Save Money on Consumer Research: DIY - email, mobile, social

Wonder what your customers and prospects are thinking? There are research firms out there that will charge you thousands of dollars to research this for you – but there is also a free way to gather the same information. Add a feedback link to your emails, ask recipients three questions:

1) Give feedback (open ended response to an open ended question)

2) Rank your product (one to five)
3) Rank your service (one to five)

Then all you have to do is compile the responses, over time you’ll gather valuable feedback without that research firm. You’ll also engage your recipients and further the relationship.

A financial institution does a good job of probing their list to keep people engaged. They ask simple questions and this keeps their consumer connected: How much does the average family of four spend on beverages when dining out, in the average year? or How much does your commute cost?

A phone company (not mine) offers a one minute survey - they ask you the same three questions. They use the answers to lead the respondents to a landing page where the consumer is thanked by giving them access to a free ringtone.

A restaurant sends out recipes to their consumers once a month. During that interaction they seek two things - first, they want to know how they are doing; second, they also try to solicit recipes from you.

It does not cost much to stay connected and if you are looking for a simple practical application of social media, mobile, or email - leverage the survey, a short but effective way to make your customer your advisor.

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Poor Man's CRM: How much should you charge?

How much should you charge for a product or service? How much should you discount existing merchandise? Is it worth giving merchandise away for $5.99 when $6.49 is suffice?

This article is about trying to figure out how much you could charge for a product or service. For that matter it is also about trying to figure out who you could target with a particular offer. I have successfully applied this principle at a number of places and would like to share with you an example with a travel company – hopefully you can draw from this some examples and try to apply them to your own business.

A travel company features destinations to their subscribers. They do it in two unique ways – first they simply list images of different destinations in their email campaigns. They also run a column & every week the author of the column shares her experience having visited a particular destination. They track the clicks on each city, plus they track who is reading the column. After three months of campaigns, they analyze their click throughs to gauge who is interested in which destination & who is reading the column. They pick the people and then set them up with a series of recurring multi-channel communiqués to coax them into the destination or even purchasing a travel guide.

The pricing strategy for the travel guide is quite interesting. They track the clicks on their travel destination column & put people into different segments – those who are avid readers (above 7 clicks) get to pay full price for the guide; those who have read it a little less (more than 4 clicks) get a 15% discount; those who have read it two or three times get a 20% discount. And of course, one time readers get a special offer – they get a free online subscription to 3 months worth of destination columns. If they open and read these emails, they get the offer to purchase the entire set of travel guides for 40% off list.

This same principle could be applied to a financial institution. You feature an expert’s column where you share best financial practices. You track the clicks on this column and use the information to invite the readers to insider seminars or to purchase DVDs or books by the expert.

A cataloger that I work with does something very simple – yet it is so effective. They offer their buyers and non-buyers a simple survey. The survey asks the recipient what they like and even asks them to rank products & suggest price points. The cataloger then keeps this information handy and leverages it into specific offers.

It is all about knowing what people want, and engaging them in a dialogue. And yes it is about some practical applications for your email marketing program - a few tweaks in pricing or targeting and your program more than pays for itself.

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15 days to get my first campaign

Many businesses are trying their best to engage consumers by getting the consumer to sign up for digital campaigns. Employees have been trained to ask the consumer for their email id, there may be a fishbowl to collect cards, and some have even placed an elaborate book to get the consumer to sign up.

What these businesses fail to do is execute the campaign quickly. In a survey of over 200 businesses over the past three months, the average turnaround time for a store or branch based location to send an email campaign is 15 days - that is just over two weeks.

This is not good for many reasons including a disengaged consumer, a startled consumer, a disinterested consumer, or at times a bitter consumer. What makes matters even worse is that many of the businesses that sent this first email used the following text (paraphrased):

Your email address has been entered into our mailing list. If this was done in error, feel free to unsubscribe by clicking the link below.

I'm sure many consumers probably unsubscribe right away. The timing is terrible, there is no real offer, and it looks really sloppy.

While it is great that people are focused on email to try and collect as many email addresses, I am disappointed with the amount of time it takes with the follow-up.

To maintain relevance with your customers, send them a welcome email as soon as they sign up telling them what they can expect to see from you in regards to future emails. This way they remember who you are and why they signed up for your emails in the first place.

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How a chuck-a-puck contest drove successful engagement

Once upon a time there was an email marketing manager for a regional hockey team; the team was a start-up in an area not very familiar with the sport so ticket sales were low. They managed to sell 4K of their 12K seats in season tickets, another 2K would typically sell on their own and their sales team was able to move an additional 1K through corporate sales/ event nights. This left them with 5K empty seats.

Disappointed with the empty seats, the owners tasked him with boosting ticket sales – the email manager tried everything, promoting to his email list (approximately 7K names), working closely with the advertising group for television, print and bill board ads. He tried PR initiatives and even dressed up in a sandwich board to hand out tickets. Nothing really worked.

So one afternoon, while stuffing envelopes, he decided to promote a contest. He put out an email to his entire list (7K names). Asking recipients to print out the email and bring to the game, those who did would receive a puck to chuck into the goal during half-time. From his list only 700 opened, 200 brought in the email as instructed and had their chance to chuck-a-puck. There were five winners, who received merchandise, free tickets or photos with the players.

After the contest, the announcer told everyone where to sign-up for the next game and their chance to play. By the next week he had 1,400 new subscribers, the email went out and had 3,600 opens – 2K people printed to play at the next game (he still had five winners). By the third game he had even more subscribers, an open rate above 60% and a huge conversion. Response was so overwhelming that he pressed further by giving the non-winners an opportunity to fill out an online preference survey with the chance to win box seats for the next game.

So the moral of this story is that a little interaction goes a long way. This one contest helped the manager

1) grow his list;

2) get more “cheeks in seats” and

3) actually CONNECT with customers (he collected personalized information that could be leveraged for future campaigns.)

You could do the same, think of ways to solicit interaction, it could revitalize your email campaigns, reduce direct mail cost and give you access to the personal information you need to attract advertisers… you may even unload some of those expensive “Jack Nicholson” seats.

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Five Clicks You Must Track

One of the strongest ways to segment any campaign is through the click-through data collected. Personalization, relevance and even timing can all be improved through proper click-through analysis.

Most marketers look at the click-through as a summary of the analysis in the life of a single campaign. They then measure it across campaigns by looking at how the each campaign performed comparing the click-throughs over time. While this might give you great results to see how well you are doing; it does very little to improve the overall effectiveness of your campaign.

In an analysis of some of the best email programs – here are some things you should do with your click-throughs:

1) Purchase Click – Thank the consumer for having purchased your product; set them up to receive survey about their purchase. Ask them about your product(s), your service and their feedback. Leverage this information into follow up campaigns – for better results, run this as a separate stream of communications. It is more targeted and will do better.

2) Click without Purchase – You now know what the user has clicked on, so leverage their click-through into your preference strategy for personalization. Highlight the item they clicked on as part of a follow-up campaign or include it as one of three offers in a subsequent campaign. In fact, it wouldn’t be bad to get user feedback on the item they clicked on in a non-buyer survey down the road.

3) Bunch of Clicks – Track all the items they click on and personalize. Put out an email featuring a number of life stages to consumers – now track and see what life stage they are clicking on. Perhaps a click on College Education might give the financial institution data to try and personalize an offer on College Loans or Automobiles (the kid needs a car). If you are selling cities or products – give them a number of options, watch what they click on and then try to zero in.

4) Unsubscribe Click – Respect this click and do what I do, ask the unsubscriber why they have unsubscribed. This is extremely good information to help you improve your email program. More importantly, I am able to talk three out of ten unsubscribers into understanding my email program; re-subscribing and some have even become vocal promoters.

5) No Click - Think about targeting these people with something to try and coax them over to the next page. You know they are looking at your campaigns, yet there is something that is keeping them from taking the next step.

Click through information is a vital gauge on your online marketing program. It can give you focus for your campaigns. In a subsequent article I will talk to you about how you can arrange the offers for your recipient based on the click through.

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Seven Reporting Must Looks for Email Marketers

Email results can be sliced and diced into a million different ways, making it harder to determine what is truly best for you business – so what numbers should a marketer consider?

Based on multiple conversations, results and a lot of testing here’s the path that I use to review campaigns:

1) Unsubscribes – I start by looking at the number of people who consider themselves alienated. I’ve found that by reaching out to these unsubs (via personal email or phone call) you can rationalize and strengthen your campaigns. I’ve found that for every ten people I talk to, I am able to resign seven – Yeah, I’m that convincing – but most importantly, these re-subscribers become major proponents of future campaigns. I realize you may not be able to do this yourself, but if you can engage your team or even send them a written note.

2) Bounces – I look to see how many emails went bad, the type of bounce etc. I review hard bounces (now removed from my list), I then review those coded as Blocked/ SPAM Detected and re-target those people with a text-only message. By knowing who is not receiving your messages, you can contact them through another channel – i.e. your direct mail group or call center.

3) Opens – This metric tests your subject lines; since we promote the use of multiple subject lines it is a true opportunity to see how a few words impact your offer. The best tip is to keep testing and keep it fresh; if you get stuck, involve your customer service team – they talk to customers daily and could be a source of great ideas.

4) Clicks – How many people were driven to the landing page, this is a test of the content. Keep your copy effective, make sure your images work and make sure there is no ambiguity as to what to click on – by using the click data, you can further group people into segments and interests.

5) Conversion – Defined as completion of the call to action or the sale of product(s). This is a number we are typically judged on, BUT it is not the only number to look at. Check your landing pages to make sure they are reflective of your offer and avoid the temptation of offering only sales as a remedy to upping conversions.

6) Feedback – This is your best insight to your customer base, so ask them to provide feedback in each of your campaigns. Track the total number of responses as well as the content of these responses.

7) Reputation – Monitor the feedback loops, spam complaints and how the ISPs are responding – these items change every day so you must keep up.

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Do Not Forget Your Landing Pages

As email marketers, we put a lot of time and effort into designing and testing our email content, our subject lines, our segmentation, and so on. But how much time and effort do we put toward looking at the landing pages?

Our email's goal is to point people back to our site, and have them make a purchase (or whatever other metric we use to measure successful conversion). Are you ensuring that when a customer clicks on the link in your email to start taking the path of desired action, that the landing page makes it as easy as possible for them to do so?

Here are some things to try:

• Take customers to the product - Many email are product centric, and will have a featured product out of a group. Unfortunately, many marketers chose to have the landing page for the featured product take the user to the product group. For instance, if you show a pair of shoes in your email, take the user to that specific pair of shoes when theyclick on the image, not the entire listing of your shoe department.

• Do an A/B test of the landing page - If you make the effort to do A/B tests on content, subjects, and the like, then why not try an A/B test of your landing page? Maybe a simplified layout and one with additional product description to see which one converts more people.

• Personalize the Landing page - If you're sending an email to customers, you should be able to pass personalized values to the landing page.

Remember, getting the customer to the landing page is only half the battle. Giving customers the best landing page can help push your email marketing efforts over the top.

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How to get all your customers to sign up for your digital campaigns

I sometimes put people on the spot by asking them why I should sign up for their email campaigns, the most popular response is… “ummh”

To combat the Ummh-factor, you should list five of your own reasons why someone should sign up for your email program. Ask people who work for your company to provide you with reasons, intercept a couple of customers and ask them why they would like to receive emails from you. Now list all these reasons and come up with conversational ways of saying it.

Providing no answer is bad, providing a canned response is worse – having an “ummh…” here and there won’t hurt you. Here are some good core reasons:

1. Be the first to know,
2. Useful information, fabulous offers
3. Personalized to your preferences
4. Delivered immediately
5. Because we care about the environment

Keep the reasons listed so your front-line people can easily access; this conveys the importance of collecting emails through all channels and makes them feel important. To introduce the concept, provide scripts/ excerpts from conversations:

• “Miss Smith, the stickers you just ordered are really cute. Have you seen the new puppy stickers? They’re just great – let me send it over to you. What is your email please?”

• “Miss Smith, the muffin mix that you ordered is all set. Did you see the newsletter article that our chef had about this mix a couple weeks ago? Let me send it over to you, what’s your email please?”

• Start off by reading part of the instructions – stop after two lines and say “How about I email this document over to you, and I can walk you through the instructions. What is your email please?”
  

Make all your channels interactive, and make it conversational. People are beginning to accept email as a natural means of communication. Do it well, and you will excel. I would love to get your favorite reasons why someone should sign up for email.

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15 Ideas to Reconnect with Your Consumer

It’s inevitable, at some point you’ll lose contact with some of your customers and prospects… but don’t worry, there are a number of ways to reengaging them, here are a few simple yet effective ideas:

1) Send a simple email with the subject line – Do you read your email? or Do you read your catalog?

2) Offer more control over the type of emails they receive and the frequency of the messages; if the consumer can control this interaction, then they are more likely to participate.

3) Send a We miss you! email with an offer (better yet, try a split test without the offer.) This will hopefully capture their attention and give you the opportunity to target more effectively.

4) Go back and look at the links they clicked in the past and then target them with similar offers.

5) Keep the focus on the transactional, send an email at the conclusion of the transaction. If they have purchased, ask why; if they haven’t purchased try to find out why not... the goal is to keep them engaged.

6) Check their activity across other channels, see what they are doing, remind them about your program and see what you can do to get their attention using alternate mediums.

7) Integrate multiple channels, send a print piece that offers part of the story/ offer and references the remainder on the landing page. This is a great way to grab the customer’s attention and test the validity of your data.

8) Ask your people, your frontline folks are your lifeline to your customer base. Ask them what customers and prospects are saying about your email campaigns and leverage their feedback into the process.

9) Let them truly be the first to know; if you promise a good deal via email, make it come true.

10) Be sincere, tell them about the benefit of your email program, stress the environment, your ability to serve them better and your savings – stress how you can translate these savings into a benefit for them.

11) Solicit customer & prospect feedback - ask them about your campaigns, your products, your services. Make this information available over the web for others to evaluate and comment on.

12) Open up your social media channels, and do listen to what people are talking about on those channels. Think about including social talk within your email campaigns.

13) Humanize your campaigns - let your customers reach out to your organization if they need to. An email help desk helps answer questions, analyze results of campaigns, & provides real time feedback for improvement of your campaigns!

14) Talk about email on social media - talk about your campaigns on your social media channels - you can test out subject lines on Twitter prior to going live (this is a very simple A/B test), you can also talk about specifics on your Facebook page.

15) Survey your consumers - ask them what they expect from you and then announce that in your email campaigns, 'you spoke, we listened....' You could pay a research firm thousands to get free and relevant advice from those you serve!!

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Five Subscription Page Absolutes

It seems basic, but sometimes we forget what should be done when signing people up for our emails. Here are five things you should make sure you're covering on your subscription page:

• Tell them why - A brief explanation of what the customer should expect when they sign up for your emails. Tell them the types of emails they will get, and how often you plan to send to them.

• Ask for preferences - This will make sure that the emails you send to these customers are relevant and timely.

• Let them know they can opt out - Just a brief not telling customers they can opt out at any time, so they have comfort in the fact that if they don't like what they get, they can drop your emails.

• Send a mail right away - You should send a mail to new sign ups as soon as possible, within a couple of days at the latest. This way, customers won't forget they signed up for your mails.

• Stick to your word - If you tell customers that you're going to send one message a week, only send one a week, not 3 a week. If you ask for their preferences, send based on those preferences.

These five basic tips will make sure that your customers have a better experience when registering and receiving your emails.

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Five Things Not To Do With Your Email Campaigns

Here are five things you should not do when it comes to your digital 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 ‘em help themselves – Do not have one big page and expect to have them tell you all. Structure the questions is a flirtatious 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 a catalog – 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 very hard (if not 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. Yet, you have some very high brand name retailers who will put the entire offer of the e-mail within the subject line. Yes subject lines as long as 35 words! This one retailer in particular also pays it’s models for impressions. Unfortunately for them the impression is based on emails delivered, not on number of times viewed. With so much being spent on the collateral within the e-mail, their approach baffles me.

Listen to ‘Experts’ – The experts or analysts believe in numbers & gut feel based on a cumulative opinion. What is cumulative opinion? This is opinion that is based on what everyone is doing. This in my opinion is precisely the time to stop doing what others are doing and focus on something unique. Most of the e-mail analysts publish reports based on case studies, case studies are the results of vendors publishing success stories, these success stories are usually exaggerated and unfortunately very delayed. This is not going to make your program unique, it is simply going to ensure that you don’t fail – kind of stay average.

So to rise above all – learn to create dialogues with your clients & 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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Simple Ideas to Elevate Your Post Transactional Messaging

Many marketers have the challenge of marketing to customers who only make one big transaction a year; they’re unsure of what to sell and how to promote but want to make sure that they are in consideration whenever the recipient is in the market again. My suggestion is to keep the recipient engaged with information, good customer service and useful tips. Here are a few examples from different industries:

Your customer has just purchased a vacation trip, start by asking for feedback about their trip, offer lifestyle and food tips from other destinations. Make email communiqués reminiscent of the travel channel – offering a get away with every newsletter. Include information and numbers that they can call about destinations but don't force them to buy, simply remind them that you are there.

Your customer has just purchased a large piece of furniture; follow up the purchase with a sincere thank you. Then ask them to send you pictures or feedback of how they like the purchase, how it fits with their existing décor. Keep communicating with them offering design tips and ways to spruce up their home. Share stories of how other people have transformed their homes with similar/ complimentary products. Keep them in their same segment but offer smaller gifts that may be perfect for their friends and family.

A customer makes a large financial investment – a bond or CD. Like the furniture purchase, thank them and then keep them abreast of what is happening in the market. Engage them in a dialogue by getting them to share information about their family, their financial aspirations and how you can help them get there. If you keep them engaged they will pay attention to your communiqués including your offers.

Whatever your industry, start building up your social content by soliciting feedback from your consumers after they transact with you. Leverage this feedback in all of your messages as other consumers make decisions based on real feedback.

Regardless of the industry or purchase, the key is to keep people engaged with content that they perceive valuable and applicable to their daily lives… regular interaction could be your answer.

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