SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

The Why and How of SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS

ExactTarget launched the “Digital Morning,” the first in a series of six research briefs from our SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS project.

This is probably the most aggressive research project I have ever been involved in. It’s also the most exciting. The approach we employed from the start reflects our Subscribers Rule! philosophy—namely that the customer comes first. The key to making your customers happy is to understand what motivates them to do what they do. It’s not enough to know simply WHAT they do, we need to understand WHY.

Most research of this kind starts and ends with a survey. In this case, researchers (such as myself) decide which questions we should ask. We decide what is important. This has the unintended consequence of limiting what we can learn. The questions we ask are the greatest limitation of our knowledge. This project represents an attempt to break free of those limits.

SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS started with a simple question, “What are the differences in how consumers use email, Facebook, and Twitter to interact with brands?”

We started with interviews and focus groups. These were conducted in March 2010. We asked why people use email? Why they use Facebook? Why Twitter? What is good about each tool? What are the problems with each tool? We asked how consumers want to interact with brands. What are the differences in how they perceive brands through email, Facebook, and Twitter? Every part of this project stems from those core questions and the detailed and, often, heartfelt responses we heard. These interviews and focus groups gave us more than 400 pages of qualitative content that would inform our survey.

The goal of the survey was simply to quantify the sentiments we heard in the focus groups. There were people who said their email usage dropped sharply as they started using Facebook and Twitter. Others said their email use went up since they had reconnected with old friends. The survey helped us put numbers to these experiences.

Digital Morning addresses a seemingly simple question, “Where’s the first place you go online when you wake up?” As it turns out, this tells us a lot about how people approach the Internet in general. The majority starts their day with email (58%), followed by Search (20%) and Facebook (11%). ‘Email-first’ consumers tend to be more interested in consuming information online. Yes, they participate in social media. They use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, write blogs, upload pictures, etc. but they use these tools differently than people who start their day on Facebook. Facebook-first people are more, well, social in their approach to the Internet. The Internet to them is about interaction first and consuming information second.

Check out the report for yourself to get this first glimpse and stay tuned ‘cause we are just getting started!

The Super Bowl’s Email Afterthought

If you were one of the 90+ million Americans who watched the Super Bowl this past weekend, you were not only treated to a great game but also a number of great commercials from Doritos.  What you might not have known is that two of those commercials were produced by regular Joes and selected as the winner and runner-up of Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest.

The contest, which ran for weeks prior to the Super Bowl, allowed people to vote on their favorite consumer-generated Doritos commercials until only five remained.  The finalists were then subjected to a final round of consumer voting, and the winning commercial, “Free Doritos!“, was shown during the 1st quarter (personal aside — the runner up, “ATM“, was created by a friend of mine, but that back story is best told over drinks at this week’s Online Marketing Summit).

The campaign generated a ton of buzz for Doritos, and both ads garnered positive comments from many Super Bowl ad reviewers.

So imagine my surprise as a Crash the Super Bowl voter when I received the following email from Doritos yesterday (Tuesday).

An opportunity missed of Super Bowl proportions.

What a missed opportunity!  The email didn’t contain any branding, any offer or any call to action to become a subscriber to Doritos future email communications.  My guess is that email was an afterthought in this campaign — a line item that had to be checked off before the books could be closed on this year’s “Crash the Super Bowl” party.

And what a shame that is.  Doritos had my post-Super Bowl attention.  They could have sent me a coupon to try a new flavor or opt-in to their continuing communications.  That way, the 30 seconds of attention they garnered around the Big Game would create value throughout the year as they grew their email subscriber base exponentially overnight.

Doritos certainly isn’t alone in treating ad campaign emails as an afterthought.  One hopes, however, that the belt-tightening of 2009 will force agencies and companies to capitalize on the power of email — and subscribers — to produce far greater ROI than any single television commercial.

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:

I’m Out of the Office (So Turn Left)

Proof that you should never ask a Welshman for directions via email.

You Have BrainMail!

I'm sorry, my brain inbox is full.

Fresh from the “strange but true” inbox here at SR! comes a report from the Discovery Channel that:

The U.S. Army is developing a technology known as synthetic telepathy that would allow someone to create email or voice mail and send it by thought alone. The concept is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG.

If you thought spam was a problem today, wait until the unfiltered thoughts of C-Level execs and undisciplined marketers rain down upon an unsuspecting populace like a thousand tiny migraines.  It will make Minority Report look like the Colgate Comedy Hour.

So, if you needed another reason to educate your company as to why now is the time to commit to a subscriber-centric marketing philosophy, look no further that a future in which UCBM (Unsolicited Commercial BrainMail) literally competes for mindshare.

My instinct?  Just as they do today, consumers will opt for relationships with the companies that don’t give them headaches (buh-dump-bum).  Thank you!  Remember to tip your waiters & waitresses…I’m here all week!