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While most retailers have experienced various degrees of tumult during this recession, the picture isn’t entirely gloomy. A recent survey by Internet Retailer, for instance, shows many online-only businesses have maintained—or are improving—their email marketing conversion rates. Of the 275 retailers surveyed:
- 56.4 percent report their typical sales conversion rate for an email marketing campaign remains about the same as last year.
- 22.8 percent say conversion is up slightly; 3.7 percent say it’s up significantly.
- 13.7 percent say conversion is down slightly; 3.3 percent say it’s down significantly.
“[The fact that] more than one quarter [26.5 percent] of retailers [improved] on conversion during a severe economic recession may surprise some in the industry,” notes Bill Siwicki of Internet Retailer. But he offers a caveat: “[S]ome email marketing experts say customers on email lists are still buying, [but] not as much.”
Still, these results demonstrate that email marketing is “a solid tool to drive as much revenue as is possible as consumers tighten their belts,” Siwicki says. The survey respondents apparently agree: more than half intend to increase their email programs, and 43.7 percent plan to maintain them at current levels; only 4.7 percent are scaling back.
Fire up that email campaign! “Even though consumers are spending carefully,” says Siwicki, “retail marketers can still count on email marketing to perform.”
Source: Internet Retailer.
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Brainstorming a steady stream of ideas for your blog can be a challenge—especially when you’re short on time and have already covered obvious topics. If you’re facing writer’s block, Michael Martine suggests several ways to update your blog and keeping readers engaged. Here are a few:
- Create a “greatest hits” list with five of your blog’s most popular posts. If your archive is large enough, focus on a material from a specific category or theme.
- Talk about three blogs you like. There’s no need for in-depth analysis—simply link to an outstanding post at each site with a line explaining why it’s worth your readers’ time.
- Ask a question and invite replies in the comment section. Martine recommends an either/or approach—e.g., Mac or PC?—that draws strong opinions. “Your readers do all the work on this one,” he says, but adds the caveat, “Don’t do this too often, but once in a while, people will love it.”
- Talk up a cool new friend and link to her blog. “It’s good for you, good for the other person, and good for both your audiences,” he says.
Take a look at some of your favorite blogs—we’ll bet you see lots of thought leaders who use ideas like these to keep their content fresh and relevant.
Source: Remarkablogger.
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It’s one of the oldest clichés in the book, and one of the most persistent: parents who assume everyone else will share an equally enraptured fascination with the accomplishments of their toddlers. As if no other child in the history of mankind has ever taken his or her first step! Now, in a post at the Email Marketing Reports blog, Mark Brownlow discusses how misguided email marketers use a similar, flawed assumption when arguing the merits of opt-out email subscriptions.
“Every proponent of opt-out I’ve ever talked to overestimates the value and relevancy of their email,” he says. “Every single one was convinced that their product or service was so good that people would be grateful to hear about it.”
He illustrates their error with results from a survey that asked, “On a scale of 1-10, how relevant and valuable is this opt-out email?” Not unsurprisingly, senders gave a ringing endorsement of 9.5; recipients, however, gave the email’s relevance and value a stingy 0.5, and ISPs, meanwhile, were even less generous.
The lesson for marketers here? You can try to convince yourself that an opt-out program will work—and perhaps, in certain ways, it will. But opt-in is still the best bet to deliver better results, more reliably.
Stick with the opt-in option. Why? Because your subscribers know best. “However much data you may have,” says Brownlow, “you cannot know enough to accurately guess what I’m interested in.”
Source: Email Marketing Reports.
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We hear lots of advice about maintaining a clean list, and much of it centers on how to handle subscribers who seem uninterested in your messages. At a certain point, you might decide it’s time to take them off your list. Before you do, though, consider these four “hidden” segments identified by Chip House in a post at the Email Experience blog:
- Subscribers who open and read messages with blocked images.
- Subscribers who use mobile devices that don’t render images.
- Subscribers who don’t click on anything or take action online, but who shop at your bricks-and-mortar store.
- Subscribers who forward your messages to friends, but don’t use your forwarding feature.
His advice for identifying such segments includes steps like these:
Offer a variety of trackable message-sharing options. “Provide a number of ways that recipients can share [your] emails with their friends,” he advises, “either [through] standard viral links or via new technologies allowing sharing with social networks.”
Send offers with tracking codes. Sending coupons with embedded codes to potential offline shoppers is one great way to determine who they are and what they’re buying.
Careful where you cut! In your efforts to maintain a clean list, you might dump customers who want to receive your messages. “[Be aware] of these hidden, engaged subscribers, and develop strategies to make them visible,” House advises.
Source: Email Experience Council.
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It’s a bit of a craze these days: “Oops!” email subject lines that purport to apologize for a mistake, when they’re really nothing more than tricks to get you to click. Inside, the messages say something like, “We’re sorry, we sent you the wrong ad yesterday! Please accept 10% off!” Whatever.
But what if a customer points out that your company really did make a mistake? Should you own up to it? A recent post at the Service Untitled blog says “Yes!” and then offers some reasons why it’s best to admit when you slip up:
Customers are sometimes surprised by your honesty. Let’s face it: customers who complain expect an argument. Imagine their pleasant surprise when you say, “Yes, we made a mistake. I apologize for the error.”
Honesty implies accountability. “Accountability tends to be reassuring, especially to customers who were just witness to a mistake/screw-up,” SU notes.
SU also refers to one of its previous posts, which offers how-to tips for mea culpas. Among them:
- Explain why the mistake happened. (Do not make excuses.)
- Explain why it won’t happen again.
- Offer appropriate service credit, compensation, etc.
- Provide the customer with your direct contact information.
- Thank the customer for his or her understanding.
- Follow up in five days with another apology and offer of help.
Just admit it. Nothing serves customers better than a little honesty following a faux pas.
Source: Service Untitled.
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When subscribers open email messages, you have about seven seconds to answer their most important question: “What’s in it for me?” According to Steve Adams, the best way to prove value is to deliver great content again and again. Here are three time-tested rules to keep in mind when writing your email missives:
Know your audience. “Are you writing to a 70-year-old retiree who enjoys golf, or a stay–at-home mother of three?” he asks in an article at MarketingProfs. If you have a diverse audience, target segments with specialized content.
Give messages a personal touch. Sign your name to offers, or find another way to give a human “face” to your company. “Establishing a personal voice behind your communications not only helps the customer feel a connection,” says Adams, “but also fosters a relationship with your readers.”
Keep it short and sweet. Don’t waste your seven seconds on wordy text or fluffy content. “Make it easier for your customers to sort through what they don’t care about and find what really sparks their interests,” he says. In the same spirit, he also suggests that the more frequently you send messages, the shorter they should be.
Never forget why subscribers signed up for your messages in the first place—valuable content. “It is the key to executing successful campaigns, growing your subscriber following, and getting them to keep coming back for more,” says Adams.
Source: MarketingProfs
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“For marketers, it’s very easy to get caught up in raw numbers,” says Prashant Kaw in a brief video embedded in a post at the HubSpot blog. “Such as, ‘Oh, I did 50,000 visitors to my site this month,’ or ‘I got 10,000 leads.’ But it’s very important to know how many of those visitors converted to leads, and how many of those leads led to opportunities and customers.”
To prevent falling into that trap, Kaw offers these reminders:
- Conversion starts with leads and ends with sales. To gain true insight, it’s important to track and analyze leads throughout the funnel.
- Everything works in cycles. Identify which lead channels produce the most closed deals. “Focus on those channels in your upcoming lead generation campaigns,” advises Kaw.
- Measure your programs frequently. “If you were an accountant, would you check your balances only at the end of the month?” he asks. “Of course not!” Check in daily, or even several times each day, to determine how well each program performs.
Raw numbers are just the beginning—unless you watch them throughout the sales process, you won’t know how to refine future efforts.
Source: HubSpot.
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Facebook has a checkered past when it comes to user relations. Members cried foul, for instance, when the social-networking giant launched the invasive Beacon system, and they later bemoaned certain aspects of the site’s redesign. More recently, they decried the new terms of service that weighed heavily in Facebook’s favor.
So if your business uses Facebook for marketing purposes, you might worry about getting caught in the crossfire; perhaps you’re even considering the prospect of a safer haven. If so, Crosby Noricks says there’s no need to for immediate concern. “Right now, just keep focusing on connecting with your customers wherever they are (and they are still, absolutely, on Facebook, in droves).”
From Noricks’ perspective, the ongoing debates have little bearing on the how you use the social network for business purposes—which include being:
- Real
- Relevant
- Receptive
- Responsive
She compares Facebook’s seeming heavy-handedness to a strip-mall manager with bad interpersonal skills. “A retail store [in the mall] would still get customers,” she says, “because customers feel a connection to the store owner and sales clerks.”
“No version of Facebook’s terms of service will ever come … between a company and its constituents in a social media setting so long as that organization has built and maintained a strong personal connection,” says Noricks.
Source: MarketingProfs.
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We all know it: your best customers love it when they are made to feel special. New research that demonstrates just how important status tiers are in loyalty programs. The researchers ran a variety of tests to determine what resonated best with customers in terms of loyalty-status designations. For instance, one test asked potential frequent travelers to pick a preferred hotel among three choices. The only difference among the three “chains” was their loyalty programs:
- Chain A offered no elite status.
- Chain B offered one elite tier for frequent guests (Gold status).
- Chain C offered two elite tiers, one for guests who stayed at least 30 nights (Gold), and one for guests who stayed at least 20 nights (Silver).
The results? All opted for the hotels with rewards programs, and Chain C won big:
- Those who knew they’d qualify for Gold status vastly preferred Chain C, which included the Silver tier.
- Even the “non-elites” preferred Chain C with its two elite tiers.
- The actual benefits offered to the top tiers in Chain C seemed to resonate less than the Gold and Silver status designations.
The lesson for loyalty marketers here? Build in a gold-and-silver-plated snob factor. “A three-tier [loyalty] program [Gold, Silver and no status] is more satisfying to all involved,” the authors say, even for customers who don’t qualify for rewards—yet.
Go heavy-metal. Consider using Gold, Silver and no-status designations in your loyalty program: it could boost enrollment.
Source: “Feeling Superior: The Impact of Loyalty Program Structure on Consumers’ Perceptions of Status,” by Xavier Drèze and Joseph C. Nunes
Crumbs from the Scone
Spring is here, and Karen Talavera wants to clean house. “[N]ow is the perfect time for us to critically re-examine our programs, campaign processes, and messages with a fresh, unbiased eye,” she says in an article at the MarketingProfs site. “Time to sweep away the cobwebs of inefficiency or neglect that might have accumulated in less-scrutinized times.”
Talavera identifies five areas for close examination; among them:
Permission. It’s likely that a number of sources contribute subscribers to your list, and that they use varying degrees of permission—pre-checked box, un-checked box, double opt-in or even opt-out. “[P]ut a stake in the ground and make your preferred method the new standard,” she says. For the highest level of customer engagement, she recommends double opt-in and an un-checked box.
Your Message. “When is the last time you gave the messages you send a thorough critique?” she asks, noting that you need to examine both marketing and transactional email. Make sure that the technology works, you’re within the law and your messages reflect your brand.
“Improve what you have already,” Talavera advises. “Start from the ground up, making sure your fundamentals are sound. There’s no point building on a shaky foundation; now … is the time to shore up.”
Get squeaky clean! As budgets and staffs shrink, spring cleaning can vastly increase your effectiveness and efficiency.
Source: MarketingProfs.
While most retailers have experienced various degrees of tumult during this recession, the picture isn’t entirely gloomy. A recent survey by Internet Retailer, for instance, shows many online-only businesses have maintained—or are improving—their email marketing conversion rates. Of the 275 retailers surveyed:
