SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

Fab 5 Inbox Fun

A Fab High Five Executed to Perfection.

There’s a bit of fun happening over at MediaPost’s Email Insider this month thanks to Razorfish’s David Baker.  In his November 10th column, he shared a list of five emails that he looks forward to receiving in his inbox and then posed a question for readers to answer — Who’s in Your Fab 5 Inbox?

Lisa Harmon from Smith-Harmon then picked up the cause today and shared her Fab Five Inbox as well.  So, to keep the ball rolling, I dug into my personal Yahoo inbox to uncover those emails that make the top of my own list as a subscriber.  Here they are, in no specific order:

1. ITunes Tuesday: It reminds me to sync my iPod and lets you test-drive a free tune, music video, and occasionally, a TV show.
2. The Wailing List from Despair.com: Dry, biting humor from the anti-Successories folks.  Always elicts laughter and every few months, a purchase.
3. TED: If you don’t know the TED conference and it’s weath of video brainfood, do yourself a favor and visit www.ted.com now.  Their stuff is a constant source of inspiration and entertainment on long, cross-country flights.
4. Continental Airlines: Living in one of their hub cities, I’m a loyal frequent flyer who’s always on the lookout for a good deal for family travel.
5. YouTube Comments: Long story short — Two years ago, I posted a video of my son singing an impromptu version of The Turtles “Happy Together” at a local event.  155K views and growing, people still comment on it to the tune of 10+ comments a week.  He has a global fan base.  Crazy.

I’ll leave it to the psychiatric establishment to discern what my Fab Five mean, but I can tell you that the exercise definitely helps take you out of “marketer” mode and think like a subscriber.  Many of the emails I enjoy don’t exist to elicit an immediate purchase — but they sure go a long way toward solidifying my relationship with each company, organization or website.

So if I may echo David’s question, what’s in your Fab Five Inbox?

10 Email Marketing Lessons from Coldplay

Viva La Vida from Coldplay

Back in May, I wrote a post over on the ExactTarget blog about Coldplay’s email strategy for their new album Viva La Vida.

Now comes a great blog post from Nick Crocker, a digital music marketer down in Australia, who offers up his analysis of the Ten Things We Can Learn From Coldplay’s Email Marketing.

While it is hard to argue with Coldplay’s sales success, Nick does a great job of offering some very valid and constructive criticism of certain elements of Coldplay’s efforts — such as the delay in sending a follow-up email upon registration and the inclusion of ridiculously large links.  He also hit on the biggest miss of the program — Coldplay’s failure to offer a pre-order link in their initial email to subscribers.

My favorite of his “Top Ten,” however, has to be #6:

Remember, it’s about them, not you. Since the download, 70% of the calls to action within Coldplay’s emails outlined what fans could do for the band.  Only 30% related to Coldplay doing something for fans.  Email marketing, like a friendship, works best when the exchange is 50/50.  When you give people more value, you increase the chances they will talk positively about you to others.

Apparently, SUBSCRIBERS RULE! even down under.

“Express Consent” Requirement for Behavioral Targeting?

I wondered why my Spidey-like, recovering attorney sense was tingling the other day.  It turns out that legislators, regulators, and now, even the courts, are taking a look at the legality of behavioral targeting in advertising and whether current practices may violate the law.

According to an article in MediaPost’s Online Media Daily,

“[The NeuAd lawsuit] could be a landmark case,” said attorney Bennet Kelley, founder of the Internet Law Center in Santa Monica, Calif. and former privacy director at ValueClick. He added that a victory for the plaintiffs could mean that broadband providers will be left with no choice but to seek users’ affirmative consent before selling information about people’s Web activity to ad companies.

If Congress, regulators or the courts chose to act, very soon ISPs and others may need express consent not unlike an email opt-in from consumers in order use their data to trigger behaviorally targeted ads.  Frankly, the logistics of how this might be implemented make my head spin; however, one thing is clear — opt-in isn’t just for email anymore.  It becoming the lingua franca of ethical marketing practices across a number of fronts.

So, don’t be surprised in the coming months if the brand advertising folks start poking around, asking your email marketing team questions about permission and opt-in best practices.  It may just be that they are gearing up for the inevitable march of the SR! philosophy into their turf.

Facebook ≠ Email Platform Video Rant

I love it when folks send me interesting YouTube videos to ponder.  In the one below, Kevin Dugan (@prblog on Twitter and author of the Strategic Public Relations blog) offers up a video rant set to a killer mash-up of the Beastie Boys “Sabotage” and Led Zep’s “Black Dog” (catch it before the copyright police pull it down).

The gist of the piece is that Facebook is not an email platform, and that if you use it to send your “friends” junk you will sabotage your marketing efforts (hence the Beasties song selection).

Kevin’s message is dead-on; however, his advice holds true for email as well.  Whether the inbox is in Facebook or Yahoo, MySpace or Gmail, LinkedIn or Outlook, the fundamental rules are the same:

1. Do not send without permission.
2. Send only through authorized channels.
3. Send only relevant content that was requested by the subscriber.
4. Send only in a volume that is reasonable or is requested by the subscriber.
5. Stop sending when they unsubscribe or “un-friend” you.

To put it another way, the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy ain’t just for email — it’s applicable to every form of one-to-one media, including social networks.

With that introduction, may we present “Facebook ≠ Email Platform” from Kevin Dugan:

Attention Kmart Subscribers…

While I’m usually more of a Tarjay guy when it comes to big box shopping, I found myself dropping into my local Kmart this past week to pick up a few items and peruse their vast assortment of post-Halloween discount candies.  Normally, this experience wouldn’t be blog worthy; however, this visit was different.  THIS visit, upon reaching the cashier with my items, I was hit with the following wall of sound:

HelloandwelcometoKmartwouldyouliketoreceive$10incouponstodayallyou
havetodoissignuptoreceiveouremailupdatesmayIsignyouuprightnow?

Kmart's email opt-in C.T.A. at P.O.P., FYI.

Unable to decipher what I had just been asked (but clearly aware that it was a question), I stood dumbfounded for a moment until my eye caught the bright red sign next to me.  Ah-ha!  She was asking if I wanted to opt-in to their email program in exchange for $10 in coupons.

“No, thank you,” I replied, and the cashier immediately when to task two on her mental checklist — scanning my items for purchase.

Of course, a normal person would have gone on their merry way, forgetting all about this exchange.  Not me.  I’ve been mulling that transaction over and over again because it highlights one of the most critical components of any point-of-sale email acquisition program — YOUR PEOPLE.

You see, Kmart did most everything right here:

1. They posted a sign at check-out touting the benefits of email opt-in.
2. They included a strong incentive ($10 in coupons) for the opt-in.
3. They added the email opt-in call-to-action to the cashier’s checkout script.

Ultimately, what Kmart could not control was the delivery of that script.  Instead of a warm, engaging, “Wow, you really should sign up for this — it’s a great deal” conversation, I received a monotone, run-on question that left me struggling to understand what I was even being asked to do.  The net impression is that this question was clearly something that the cashier was required to ask but not something that she cared about or even remotely understood.

As previously discussed, had this been one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s employees, they would have likely found themselves on the unemployment line.  Each employee at Wine Library is trained not only on how to ask for the customer’s email address but also on WHY THAT EMAIL ADDRESS IS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPANY.  Forget to ask once or twice with the right enthusiasm, Gary may give you call — but that third time, you’ll be looking for a new gig.

Could Kmart do this?  Should they do this?  Feel free to share your thoughts.

One thing is for sure.  Kmart’s investment in point-of-sale signage and opt-in incentives indicates that they place at least a $10 value on each subscribers email address.  If my cashier generated fewer opt-ins because of her poor delivery, she could be costing the company hundreds of dollars each and every shift.

Yes, Kmart may have 1,500 stores while Wine Library has one.  That fact is exactly why it is even more imperative that Kmart and other big box retailers verify that their opt-in message is getting delivered effectively at point-of-sale — they stand to gain (or lose) far more due to the volume of their business.

Think of it this way, if Kmart would fire an employee for outright theft, shouldn’t they at least consider doing the same for an employee who consistently underperforms his or her peers at capturing opt-ins?

I’m just sayin’.

Obama Oops!

Two days ago Jeff posted several links to different articles that have been written on the use of email in the presidential campaigns. I expect this to be a hot topic and I am doing a bit of research on the on the topic now.

Is Obama getting a head start on funding the bailout?

So, what will my donation go toward now? Is this a fundraiser for the bailout plan Obama will be inheriting?

As I watch CNN this evening listening to all the things he did right and countless mentions that he ran a flawless campaign, I thought this “oops” was a good reminder of two simple truths:

1) Proof your messages.

2) When thanking people, don’t do it with your hand out!

Email Marketing Democracy

Vote and be cool. Like this kid.

After two years of campaigning, Election Day 2008 is finally upon us.  We here at SR! and ExactTarget sincerely hope that you’ll exercise your Constitutional right and join in what Thomas Jefferson called our grand experiment in democracy.

And for those hungry for an email marketing tie-in (you knew there had to be one, right?), check out these timely articles on lessons learned from the Presidential candidates’ email marketing efforts:

• Learning from the Presidential Race in Your Inbox
• Will Email Deliverability Deliver the Next President?
  
• Why the Presidential Candidates Flunked the Email Test
• Marketing Presidential Candidates on the Web Goes Mainstream (But Does It Get Votes)