10 mistakes that ruin brands

Digital channels give us so much insight into consumer behaviour. They also make it so much easier to adapt our messaging. Yet, so many brands continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Here are 10 mistakes that ruin brands.

1. Not to change or adapt, because that is the 'mission' of your business.

2. Trying to build consensus on everything and seeking everybody's opinion.

3. Believe that your brand is immune to cultural, technology, and demographic changes.

4. Being fearful of losing your job if you were to make any changes.

5. Not solicit and encourage input from those who interact with consumers.

6. Set up social media and wait for things to happen.

7. Congratulate yourself for being at the top of your industry without wondering if your industry will be there in 5 years.

8. Ignore criticism from consumers, your peers, and your front line employees.

9. Never benchmark or evaluate your program against other industries much less competitors. Those guys are clueless and their ideas have no relevance to an aged and revered brand like yours.

10. Consumers are idiots (see No. 8). Listening to what they think or feel about your brand, or how it could better meet their needs is just stupid. What could possibly come from it? New product ideas. More share. Why bother?

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How to use events and triggers to drive engagement for email, mobile, and social

Your consumer expects you to be observing them across channel. They expect you to leverage this information and provide exceptional service. To create an effective 'listening' strategy - you have to start with identifying basic triggers & events.

As you segment your consumers into different categories - you need to look at those with signficant business value and define a strategy for complex events. Eventually you need to be able to apply the complex event strategy to your lower value consumers.

Basic Triggers: Examples of this are non-behavioural events like the maturing of a certificate of deposit, service renewal, an anniversary, or a birthday.

Basic Events: These are behaviour- based but not consumer specific. So you need to think about how you are going to respond to everyone that places an order, what response you are going to give for everyone opening a new account, or a $5000 deposit, or even a type of website inquiry.

Significant Events: These are consumer initiated events and typically specific to a particular consumer segment. This would include a dramatic transaction like a product return, or an account cancellation, or even a significant deposit or withdrawl. For a travel company this could show travel between specific cities.

Complex Events: At this point you need to apply the significant events to specific consumers. So if a consumer makes a transaction you roll out an event based communication plan for that consumer.

Email, mobile, & social media need to be leveraged along with traditional marketing channels to respond to consumer 'events.'

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Seven Ideas to Create a Real Time Messaging Plan

In our right now world you have to put together a program that is real time. And real time doesn’t just mean doing things faster. Here are seven things you should do to create a real 'real time' plan.

Let me start by sharing some real numbers with you. If I can deliver a message to a consumer within three minutes of a transaction, my open rate is 98.5%. If it takes close to but less than 10 minutes, my open rates slips a tad to 95.76%. If I can deliver in 30 minutes or less it is quite good at 87.8%. Guess what happens if I wait a day? Before I give you that number, why don't you go through these ideas on making your real time more effective, because it is not just about the timing - other factors are important as well.

1 - Make sure your channels are connected. This means that you are soliciting information across channels, and that you are actually pulling all the information into one data warehouse.

2 - Put together 'steps of relevance.' This means that you start the process of collecting preferences from the consumer you can serve them with relevant offers.

3 - Plan your responses on each channel. If people interact with you on each channel, make sure you have a set of desired responses that you can execute on.

4 - Respond in as real time as possible. You have to build up 'mini-profiles' first, and message people right away. If you don't have a 'mini-profile' created, acknowledge the consumers input till you respond.

5 - Don't limit yourself to one channel. Use the profile & contact information to mix up your messages across channel.

6 - Invite the consumer into your home. Encourage them to browse your site, look at your magazine / catalog, subscribe to your email, and lure them into your 'living room.' Your living room is your social media channel.

7 - Don't forget to follow up. Many times the consumer is seeking information directly or indirectly from you. If they ask for information, it is easy to recognize their need & follow up.

You should try a two step follow up - send them information electronically (or by direct mail) and then follow up with a phone call. If they don't ask for information, track their clicks or behaviour and use that to build up your response so you can follow up effectively.

Following up effectively is all about being relevant. Being relevant right now is all about achieving real 'real time.' Oh, and if I wait a whole day, my open rate drops to 44%! That is dramatic, and really stresses the importance of real time.

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Terrible Email Marketing: Frequency Gone Bad

Sometimes, the frequency of your email campaigns determines how well you can engage a customer, but there are other factors to weigh against the quick interaction, low costs and the ability to track.

A major cataloger leveraged frequency; during a six month period they would mail four times a day. Their list included over 2.5 million recipients, the entire list would receive their 8:00 AM campaign, then at 1:00 PM the non-openers would receive it a second time. The process was repeated at 6:00 PM and then followed by an encore at 11:00 PM (all times were eastern.)

Their thought process was that if you hadn’t paid attention to their morning campaign, they would get your attention before the day ended. As the weeks wore on, the direct marketer found it cumbersome to exclude openers – so they excluded clickers but retained the same time strategy.

Their measure of success was to compare the cost on a direct mail drop with the costs of an email campaign. They also compared the production time; it typically took three weeks to produce a direct mail piece but less than three hours for an email. With marginal costs and warp speeds – they were able to get increased attention from their recipients and a phenomenal ROI… but it came at a cost.

There were three key issues they failed to address, the first was the number of unsubscribes, a hefty portion as a result of the approach. The second was the issue of aggravation; they upset a number of their prospects and customers with this steady barrage of messages. Finally was the wake created for other email marketers – to eke out a gain, they jeopardized relationships with partner companies and others in the industry.

Their CEO was pleased, but this is just one example of how a marketer needs to look past the instant gratification and build a sustainable marketing strategy.

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Social Buzz from the ClickZ SES Conference

Many thanks to the kind people at ClickZ SES - they hosted a week of learning in San Francisco. The week was focused on Search, Social, and Digital Marketing - email and mobile. I got an opportunity to talk to a number of people; here is the buzz.

1) Leverage Social Media – Use social media to engage the consumer. The entry point for your consumer could be search, email, mobile, or even the buzz on social media. The important thing is to watch where your consumer is coming from and encourage them to continue the dialogue about your brand. Email is a push channel that should be used to coax the recipient back to your site, give them something special when they get there a YouTube video, Flickr photos, a cool Twitter entry or interesting blog post. In addition to the natural search benefits, these channels will help you create a foundation of communication opportunities. Just be careful not to force any of these channels, work them into your mix naturally.

2) Ask powerful Questions – Create conversation zones with your recipients, from the time they sign up to key interaction opportunities. Ask them what they think about your products or services, but more importantly, be sure to act on the feedback.

3) Stay Current – Your audience deserves timely, relevant and concise information. Use the information from the conversation zones to produce the right message, for the recipient – if you pay attention to transactions it gives you tremendous data to further personalize your interaction with the consumer.

4) Make the Communiqué Interactive – The goal of every message is to engage the recipient, challenge them by throwing in a single-question survey or trivia point. Let the response be on a subsequent landing page where you can ask for their feedback to leverage in your next campaigns.

5) Training – Brief your team on the important measurement metrics; in many companies, digital is a mainstream program driving revenue. The important thing is to make your company (top to bottom) understands what is possible and why digital is so important.

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Seven Headlines Guaranteed to Drive Results

Your subject line… the ticket that could earn you that coveted open.

Unfortunately, so many eMarketers leave the subject line for the last minute; they simply throw something on to fit the need. Here are the first in a series to help strengthen your subject lines and help your message break through the inbox clutter.

1) Thanks for signing up!
Simple, but effective… your standard welcome email, you signed up and this is what we promised to send you. This email could be anything, the restatement of why you wanted them to sign-up, five tips on baking, 10 tips on dressing etc. This is your first step in establishing the value exchange.

2) What did you think?
After the first campaign goes out, ask people about what they thought about it. This feedback helps you craft future messages and sets expectations with the recipient, showing them that you are willing to listen.

3) Thank you for ordering (product/ service)
Be specific and thank the customer for the order they’ve placed, remind them about the advantages of the product/ service and your company.

4) How to use (product/ service)
This is an excellent way to stay top of mind post purchase; it also conveys to the customer that you’re the expert looking to enhance the value of what they’ve selected.

5) We want your Feedback
Just like the What did you Think email (example #2), this is an opportunity to collect information, show your involvement and open the door to an established dialogue.

6) We recommend…
Using the feedback collected, personalize future offers – a complementary product, service or suggestions based on what other (like consumers) selected.

7) Today Only!
The sense of urgency is one of the easiest ways to get attention, offer your recipients something unique at a great price. If the customer misses the offer, give them a second chance after they’ve provided more information and you’ve plugged the importance of your campaigns. Just be careful to balance these in with your regular offers… Today Only (three times a month) just isn’t the same.

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Five Social Values: Expertise, Convenience, Knowledge, Recognition, and Service

If you want to engage via social media, you should be doing these five things…

First, the consumer seeks an expert. The consumer will only visit with you (your virtual site or physical locations) if they are convinced that you can provide the expertise that they need. For example, if you are seeking a new flat screen television and want to know about the ability to play Internet content - your physical visit to the electronics store will only be worth it if the rep helping you can answer your questions. Consumers expect your site to be on top of the game providing the consumer with all the information that they need.

Second, the consumer seeks convenience. They want the ability to start transactions at any channel and finish the transaction off at the channel of their choice. A very important consideration here is that they expect to find information easily on your site. This means that not only should your site be well organized, they are also looking for your site to have great search, & they want you to list all your other sites including your social media sites. Also, keep in mind - tell people what each social media site is supposed to deliver versus making them just click through.

Third, the consumer seeks knowledge. They don't just want to sign on the dotted line or just take your word for it. They want to be educated and want you to explain things to them. If they were buying a home they want to understand the financing options clearly, if they are seeking references - they want to find real testimonials, if they are looking for recipes they can look those up themselves including check out user generated ratings.

Fourth, the consumer seeks recognition. Every consumer should be treated well. Calling a consumer by their name does not get you very far. The service becomes more personalized if you remember the preferences of that consumer. Airlines and financial institutions are the worst offenders of this as they take a considerably long time to recognize who their consumer is. Recognition of the consumer goes a long way in building up a relationship – selling after that is easy.

Fifth, the consumer seeks excellent service. The bottom line is that the consumer expects a perfect transaction. A perfect transaction means that the consumer has been recognized, the consumer got the information or product or service that they wanted, and the consumer is satisfied. Only if all of this happens, the consumer will be willing to share their experiences on social media channels.

The key element here is that your business is the expert, your consumers use your products and services, and these consumers can be turned into brand ambassadors. The right way to do this is to engage your current consumers on social media channels, publish this content onto your regular web site, make it easy for your prospects to find the information, and encourage your customers to mentor your prospects into making positive decisions (purchasing your product or service).

Also, be careful not to make every communiqué on social media channels about selling or transacting. Your goal really should be to inform, educate, or inspire. You should use it to answer questions and provide information to help consumers make decisions that are beneficial to them (and ultimately will be for your brand).

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10 Tips to Drive Engagement for Interactive Channels

Interactive media implies media that allows for a conversation - a two way dialogue - you can not only track where the consumer is going but you can also solicit feedback in real time.

The web, email, social media, self service, & mobile are part of interactive media.

You need to communicate with clarity & creativity - here are ten tips.

First, choose your content based on the channel you are going to use. If you are using a kiosk - you need to be quick (people may be standing in line) & give the user options to choose from. If you are using mobile you can take a little more time and allow the consumer to think about a response. Email can be used to probe and serve up targeted content on the web site.

Second, realize the importance of being brief. State your point, provide convenient links as needed, & think about the 'next step' or purpose of the page. Reduce your copy as much as possible.

Third, focus on your audience. Do not use big words or phrases that sound rhetorical or cool or things that are too complicated. Keeping your message focused on the audience level keeps them engaged. If you are too cool, complicated, or too serious you could confuse them or offend them.

Fourth, think about the message and how it ties in with the rest of the interactive screen. If you are serving up an ad on the landing page - make sure that it is contextual and doesn't draw away from the overall message.

Fifth, use an active writing style. You want both a reaction and a reply from a user. Carry out a conversation offering the benefit of your product or service rather than just stating the offering.

Sixth, organize your content to make it more effective. Headline, sections, bullets, clear icons, definitions, images, bold, italics, links - organize the information into 'chunks' of information so the consumer can find the information easily.

Seventh, you have the ability to change and adjust your message so keep testing what works best on a smaller group before releasing the content to the rest of your population.

Eighth, drive 1:1 messaging to personal channels. If you have a story to tell your consumer, get them to share their email or mobile number with you. Start by showing off some content to interest them. Now send them the rest of the content to their personal space.

Ninth, create anticipation. You want the consumer to want more. Create anticipation by showing part one of a video and if it is interesting they will want to see part two.

Tenth, move the discussion to social. Run a caption contest on social media to engage people. Many businesses put up a picture on Facebook and invite their fans to create engagement by coming up with a caption contest.

Your goal is to create an interactive conversation with the consumer that you serve.

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How to make multitouch transactions work?

Many organizations define success by how a consumer is convinced to partake in a marketing offer. You see television ads that try to build brand and drive people to a store. You hear radio ads touting a low interest rate or inviting people to a clearance event. Grocers keep mailing their circulars. And the barrage of mass email continues to torment many an in-box.

Direct mail at home and at work have offers strewn all over them. And even when the consumer unwinds on their social media site there are both ads and invitations to 'special events.' The pursuit of the consumer is relentless. These approaches to engage a consumer are typical of single channel marketing programs. These are programs that are seeking a consumer but not necessarily coordinated. Marketers and businesses pursue the consumer across channels in an attempt to convince and then convert the consumer.

Many organizations are guilty of the 'single channel chase marketing approach.' A random sampling of big and small company offers shows that there is really no connection between their channel offers. Most companies don't list their other channels in marketing communiqués, a few do but there is nothing specific. A rare few give you a compelling reason to go to the other channel.

And even those who do drive you to the other channel fail to test things out - the transfer was confusing, perhaps the link is broken, the ATM is no longer at that location, the store has closed, the event was held the week before, or the best one: the approached employee was absolutely clueless!

In an ideal scenario your channels should be aware of each other and this includes the employee. Additionally the employee should be empowered to find things and execute offers.

But to be reasonable, this is tougher than you think. Even if you have a single data warehouse it is still hard to coordinate marketing messages. Also, it is not just about good intent - you have to make it a practice to think about the other channels.

Here is one suggestion. Try Channel-Coupling. Take two or more channels and start coordinating your approach. Carry the message from one channel to the other. Have a requirement that every single communiqué you send is coordinated with at least one other channel. This means couple your email and direct mail. Connect your direct mail with social media. Send people to your Youtube channel from an ad on TV or radio.

Don't just list your channels - give people a reason to go there.

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Once Again: Social Metrics

Many have invested heavily in social media, many more are still trying to figure things out. Even the companies that are playing in the social media space are still not completely sure on how they can measure the success of their efforts. Businesses typically cite the following reasons to get involved:

'It is a way to engage our consumers.'

'That is where our consumers are.'

'Everybody else is doing it!'

While these are all good reasons and quite true, you should seek a way to measure success so you can make your engagement more effective, gain the trust of your consumers, & outdo 'everybody else.'

Here are five key principles to apply -

1 - You use social media to increase your outreach. Pick a few channels and stay focused to drive 'growth' metrics. Perhaps you are looking to find more people or raise awareness. List what you want to do and then measure that metric month over month.

2 - You use social media to let your consumer know more about your organization.That way if the consumer is in the market for a particular product or service you want to make sure that they are aware of what your organization has to offer.

3 - You use social media to go viral. If you speak tactfully and offer value on your social media channels your consumer will share what you offer with others. Keep thinking of ways to engage your consumers in a dialogue - answer their question, solicit their opinion, & make it easy for them to share.

4 - You use social media to cut costs. There are dozens of things you can do to begin cutting costs from your traditional marketing channels through judicious application of social media. This is an absolute requirement to drive social media success.

5 - You use social media to drive revenue. It is easier to measure your success in the digital world and the impact of social media can be measured easily. Pick a few programs and then use social media to try and sell those programs within your organization.

You have to save money, and drive revenue to continue any marketing program. Social media is no exception.

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How to drive consumer insight through social surveys

Consumer insight is one of three key driving trends for social media success; the key to insight is knowing what the consumer wants. Businesses have an opportunity to solicit this feedback at numerous points through surveys. Social media can make these surveys interactive, plus you can reach a lot of fans with similar interests to drive engagement.

Post purchase or post transaction surveys are a good way to both solicit opinion and keep the consumer engaged. The key here is brevity, organization, and timing. You have to make sure that the questions are well organized, focused, and that you solicit the feedback before the consumer forgets about the transaction.

In an effort to involve the entire organization some surveys become very long because every department slips in what they want to know. Your key to success with a survey on social media channels is to ask for an opinion and get the consumer to get the dialogue going.

So lessons to be learned here:
1) Keep the survey short
2) Send it quickly (be relevant)
3) Don’t complicate the answers
4) Allow text input
5) Remember the aesthetics

Most businesses still waste the opportunity to engage by printing surveys on receipts and hoping that the consumer responds. The opportunity we have as marketers is to engage the consumer on social media and leverage that insight.

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Sender Reputation is a Major Factor for Email Delivery

30 Minutes or it is FREE! Remember the old pizza promotions? They ultimately failed because it wasn't about the quality of the food or the building of their brand - the promotion ultimately died because the pizza joint lost out. People were ordering because there was the potential for a free meal.

I'll spare the cheesy email puns - but as in the pizza analogy, delivery is the deciding factor. You could have the best creative, a fantastic offer but poor deliverability - essentially a waste of your creative time and budget. One in seven commercial emails will not get delivered due to the sender's reputation.

Sender reputation is based on past performance, how you deal with complaints, address SPAM Traps and your email delivery infrastructure.

Keep your reputation positive by addressing complaints immediately, honor unsubscribes, manage registration and conduct routine analysis of the process. But there is more...SPAM traps can be avoided by maintaining the health of your list, purge dormant addresses and bounces and gather your data appropriately.

Remember get good data, monitor processes and choose your email service provider (ESP) wisely.

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Bad Examples of Post Transactional (or Post Purchase) Messaging

Congratulations! You have just converted the prospect into a customer. You have convinced them to purchase a product or a service. You proceed to thank them for becoming a customer. You also decide that it is time to up sell them with offers that are relevant.

Timely emails are awesome - email marketers know that transactional emails have higher open rates, and usually have a higher rate of conversion as the customer is already in a buying mood. A few businesses do a great job in the further up-sell. Most do nothing at all.

Then there are others that actually help 'un-sell' the consumer resulting in the original order or service being cancelled - the customer is back to becoming a prospect and the pursuit continues.

While some do a great job selling an extended warranty after the purchase, a few have lost the sale by reminding the new customer about the 'two month money back guarantee' or an upgrade to something else or the 'free trial being extended.'

Worse yet, some organizations welcome the first time buyer into an open forum without really checking the content on the forum. The new customer is faced with more options, gets an opportunity to meet dissatisfied past buyers, and at times just waits for a better deal.

In B2B situations the rep may continue to list 'feature - function - benefit' after the prospect has agreed to purchase. The rep feels compelled to sell because they feel that the prospect hasn't heard everything that the rep has to say (or has prepared to say). The rep feels they still haven't sold all the virtues of the product or service. It is very easy to loose the prospect at this stage.

A young lady that worked with us was one the worst examples of what not to do - she would insist on finishing the presentation that she put together without even bothering to listen that the client had agreed to the offer. She did what most people do not do - she spoke without listening. Of course, 10 minutes later you could see the prospects disinterest and she always wondered why she could not get the deal.

A suggestion to sellers - take a look at your post sale messages. Do include the 'thank you' but take a careful look at where your up-sell might lead the consumer. Think about setting up a recurring stream of thank you messages where you can lead your customer towards a goal state one message at a time. Think about having two sets of messages - one for the first time buyer & one for your regulars. The two groups react differently.

Learn when to stop selling past the close. Too many opportunities are lost in 'excessive' translation.

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A few questions to help you assess the value of your social media fan

1 – What is the business value of a customer?

2 – What value does your business assign to a prospect?

3 - What does your business do to measure the value of the social media fan?

4 – Do you compare yourself against your competitors to gauge your success?

5 – How many new fans are existing customers versus new customers?

6 – Can you tell if a new fan is a new customer or an existing customer?

7 – What percentage of your site traffic comes directly from your social site?

8 – What percentage of your revenue can you attribute to social media?

9 – Have you been able to drive down specific costs because of social media?

10-If your social outreach went away tomorrow, how would that affect you?

11-What type of information would you like to get from your social sites to create a better consumer experience?

I have been privileged to be a part of the Online Marketing Summit tour where I have been presenting a day long social media workshop to marketers in all industries. These questions are the result of my interactions with these brand marketers and a very valid way to come up with metrics to measure the true impact of your program.

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Leveraging Email to Achieving One to One Via All Your Channels

Brand consistency, quality messaging and succinct offers are necessary components to achieving that one-to-one marketing connection. Despite best efforts, we’re only human so even the best representatives fail to make the offer at the right time.

To remedy this challenge, businesses should create templated emails for their representatives to send to their customers, this one-to-one branding helps the rep continue their dialogue and serve others in a better fashion.

Think about creating a few communiqués for different events, allowing your CSR or rep to choose the type of communiqué they would like to offer the consumer. Take it a step further by creating weekly or monthly client updates that could be personalized by their contact (your rep.) It will go a long way to improve the dialogue between the client and your organization. Also, do not just use the interaction to make offers - use this to listen (or watch) what the client is doing.

Accelerate your program by sharing the results of the email campaign with the reps so they know what the client is clicking on; this creates interesting opportunities for follow up marketing and makes an immediate cross-channel tie when you are face to face or on the phone. You can also leverage all those clicks to create a personalized paper document that you could mail to that client.

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Have you tried an internal cross channel contest to grow your list?

A retailer that owns three channels – ecommerce, catalog, and store created a channel competition in order to see which channel could collect the most email ids.

The ecommerce channel created compelling advertising campaign to draw people onto their site – coaxing the consumer to share their digital contacts. This was a cross channel digital campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and on multiple Blogs. They were able to execute their campaign quickly.

The catalog channel created a contest to engage with consumers in their homes with an incentive. The consumers took the code sent by direct mail and looked up the incentive online. The incentive could only be delivered via email and thus began the engagement process. The catalog too did pretty well.

This brands store is well established and so they trained their people to converse with their consumers about the email-marketing program. They wrote scripts and taught the employees to create a sense of anticipation about the program. What is more important is that the store employees are focused on becoming brand ambassadors – not only to collect new email ids but also to reinforce the value of email to all their cross channel customers.

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List Growth Strategies (Part Three of Three)

Our focus on list growth in this three part series focused on how to deal with email churn. While most people focus on new customer acquisition and that is important, it is far easier to work with those that have touched your brand.

I suggest a strategy for existing customers focused on retention and one for those who have dropped off – reactivation. My retention strategy involves staying in touch with the consumer with relevant messaging, seeking their continuous input, and also watching their last interaction. If their last interaction exceeds ‘x’ days, I put in place a multi-channel campaign to try and woo them back.

If someone has dropped off my list completely, I wait for a little bit for things to cool off and try to follow up with the person that un-subscribed from my list with a post card or a phone call with a quest to understand what caused them to drop off my list. It gives me an opportunity to improve the program and in some cases it also gets me an opportunity to win some of them back.

Staying in touch with existing consumers is a lot cheaper than going and finding people that do not have a relationship with your brand. Some of my colleagues in the email marketing business have turned their customer service agents into an email help desk that help with the win-backs.

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List Growth Strategies (Part Two of Three) - Dealing with Un-subscribes

People un-subscribe from email lists for many reasons. Here are a few things to consider doing to improve your opportunities to stay connected and to improve the quality of your digital communication program.

The key is that un-subscribes need to be handled with a sense of urgency, you have obviously done something to trigger a ‘walk-out,’ so act a little desperate and perplexed as you try to communicate with the potentially upset consumer.

Start by acknowledging that the consumer can be unsubscribed immediately, but offer the snooze button. Offer to reduce the frequency of communication or perhaps even the consumers’ email id.

If the consumer still insists on getting off your list, thank them for being a member and send them a link to your ‘bargain-bin.’ One of my clients sends those that un-subscribe to a section of his site that offers 90% off merchandise.

Assign the email id to your team. Put out a call to the consumer (if you can), acknowledge the unsubscribe process and with a genuine concern to learn how to improve your program. Ask the consumer why they are getting off your list – inquire if it is the content, if it is the frequency, or other reasons. Use these reasons to improve the program. Based on my personal experiences, you have a one in seven chance to keep that consumer and also turn them into someone that pays attention to your campaigns.

Ask about a probationary period or a trial period for the un-subscriber to help them re-evaluate your email-marketing program.

By showing a sense of urgency, you are not only showing the consumer that you care but you are also stressing to your entire organization about the importance of your digital marketing program.

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List Growth Strategies (Part One of Three)

Email files continue to churn. Attrition of lists is caused by changes in addresses, blocked delivery, and un-subscribes. Then there is passive attrition of your list – this is where your consumer simply stops paying attention to your campaigns. One of the key areas of interest for any email marketer is list growth.

Your quest to grow your email list should be an ongoing process. Should an email id churn, you need to consider running salvage operations to recover.

Start with you bounces and see what caused the bounce. Check the domain name for the email id to make sure that this is not an issue. Take the names of the people that have bounced and assign these names to your other channels to try and find the correct email id for that consumer. ECOA (email change of address) services might be effective under certain circumstances.

Train your people channel to speak to the consumer about the bounce so they can get the updated email id or collect information as to why the consumer has turned you off. If you can recognize the consumer IP address as they touch your web site, seek the consumers’ updated contact information. You could also try an email append as a means of last resort.

Don’t just ask the consumer for their new email id, peek their interest and sell them the benefits of your program.

Your organization needs to share a sense of urgency to promptly find and replace the email id for the consumer – this way you are even reinforcing the importance of your program to your consumer. (Visit the site again for part two tomorrow).

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Seven Web Channels You Have to Consider

We are going to see continued innovation and expansion on the web but with all that is emerging it is prudent to focus in on the following:

First and foremost it is going to be your website as this stands for you and is the key medium that helps you communicate with your consumer base. This is your gateway to the consumer and should have all the correct information, it should offer a conduit to everything else that you offer, and it should be updated (and checked) often.

Second, you need to think about ‘hanging out’ with your consumers. To do this you need to create community pages or environments where your users can join discussions, ask questions, and help you build up your user-generated content. The important thing here is to keep this as a user / customer only group.

Third, you need to have as social media engagement strategy to allow you to attract new consumers, turn your existing consumers into brand advocates, and continue to drive dialogue with your followers (and those you follow) across channel. This is externally focused.

Fourth, you need to focus on Google. They are the leading search engine and an extremely dominant one. The world of Google offers a lot of functionality that allows people to find what they need. You need to understand the offering, be present on the key sub-channels, and learn to engage your consumer. Don’t forget the other search engines, just put a little more emphasis on Google. And of course, Google+.

Fifth, mobile web will be big with the increase in smart phones and the urgent need of consumers to interact in real time. Also, the mobile consumer is quicker to engage on social media channels.

Sixth, treat Facebook as a channel – you need to think of this as a store or branch front and learn to drive engagement with your consumers on Facebook. It is a destination channel and needs its own emphasis.

Seventh, you will see a big push towards coordinated messaging – the consumer will expect you to remember what they do on your channels / watch and use that information to carry on a conversation that makes sense.

One key thing to remember is to capture consumer preferences in each of these channels and leverage these preferences as you continue your conversation with your consumer.

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How to Create an Intelligent Preference Center

An intelligent preference center is akin to a good hotel concierge – someone you approach for an answer or to solve a problem. When you approach a concierge, their formula for engagement is to listen, to research, and only then make their suggestions. The concierge is also prompt to follow up to ensure that all went well. They then add their insights learned to build up additional preferences for that consumer.

It does not matter that you are just capturing information to know the consumer better. The key to success lies in how well you apply a number of fundamental principles so you can drive effective engagement. Knowledge about the consumer, subsequent relevancy, timeliness, consumer access to your brand, & your ability to respond to the consumer are all key considerations in building an intelligent preference center.

Most companies capture consumer preferences in multiple places and try to leverage this information to take care of their consumer. A few companies are actually framing their approach around the consumer in an effort to be ‘concierge like.’ What good is the information that you collect about a consumer if you are not in a position to respond to the consumer when they need you to?

Here are some examples from champions:

I - A major online retailer leverages consumer browsing, combined with interaction, to create a personalized stream of messaging. They have taken the tact of being a personal shopping assistant who listens, and learns so they can serve the consumer better.

II - A multi-channel financial institution leverages seven consumer touch-points to create a conversation with those they serve. So if you walk up to an ATM, you will get your receipt via mobile, which will lead to an email survey, that will drive you to their site with even more personalized messaging. Their other channels include their branch, their call center, and even social media.

III - A large cross channel retailer captures consumer preferences leveraging them for a lifecycle of communication. This retailer uses all your past purchases and wish lists to come up with a steady stream of reason, season, lifetime campaigns.

IV - An international low cost airline tries to personalize every single consumer trip with relevance – this relevance results in real money being made. So if you are flying to a particular city, they will offer you a hotel in your destination city, perhaps a taxi, and even offer you the opportunity to purchase magazines.

V - Attending a sports event is not just about the ticket, or the concessions, or merchandise – it is about engagement experiences that drive up fan value. Fan value can drive real ROI. So if you know who is coming to see what game and what else they are doing at your site - you have the opportunity to engage the consumer even more by being relevant.

These champions are driving response rates of above 70% and actually converting on 30% of their offers!

How do these champions of engagement do this? It is not about having their data in one place (I know that they don't); instead it is about letting all your channels having access to your consumers preferences, keeping those preferences updated in real time, and being pragmatic about making offers.

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How to leverage the perfect first transaction, the perfect A/B test

How far do you take your A/B test? Many campaign marketers use A/B testing to kick off their campaigns as it gives them an opportunity to evaluate the best approach or offer to engage with the rest of their list.

Why not do two more things - first, consider making the first completed transaction as a learning point for your day, second, do not just do it for the email channel.

As I grew up in India, I watched merchants treat their first customer of the day with a lot of respect. The first customer was thanked, even given a freebie, offered a cup of tea and in some cases if the customer asked for a special deal they often received it. The rationale for this exercise was to set the tone for the entire day. It was considered to be a bad omen if the first customer walked away without making a purchase so merchants were very careful to not let that happen, this practice is called Boni or Bonee (pronounced Beau Nee.)

To apply this back to email, I would like to recommend the following:

• Activity or Loyalty points: Award points for their purchases etc. the more points a prospect has should result in more opportunities or better deals. Advertise this on your site and in your community so readers know what to expect and what will help them build elite customer status.


• First Responders: Let your top customers know about deals first, we should always make sure that our best customers are reassured they will be the first to receive information from you. A furniture company I am working with has taken this advice to heart and actually sends emails on behalf of their salespeople to their elite customers. Additionally they take the extra step of making their salespeople call these elite customers to remind them to check their inbox for that special offer.


• Quote Them: Ask your first group of buyers or responders for a quote and leverage it. Publish their quote about why they are buying the product or service on your landing page along with the date so others know it is current. This makes your site a lot more interactive, gives you additional authenticity and helps you refine your offer… most importantly you create a bond with your buyers.


• Leverage Social Media: Test your offers on social media channels. Think about sharing your subject lines and your email content on Twitter and Facebook prior to sending out the email campaign. You will get your consumers attention, you will get their feedback, and your consumer may feel special for being among the first to know.


• Cross Channels: Imagine the excitement you will create if your customer service representative tells your caller they were the first (or some number) phone order that day and were getting a special deal. More than exciting your customers, this will actually make your employees more enthusiastic about playing along.

What is interesting about this idea of Boni or Bonee (the first sale of the day in Hindi) is that people always come back to the merchant they have purchased from – not necessarily the first thing in the morning, but at some point, because they have trust and an established relationship. The goal here is to build sustaining relationships as you create interactive conversations.

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