SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

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’.

R.I.P. Email for Acquisition

A hat tip to Jeff Molander for drawing my attention to a post over at eConsultancy entitled “The Decline & Fall of Email for Acquisition.”  The author’s money quote:

Cold emailing as a core business proposition just doesn’t work because the need to flog as much data as possible is totally contrary to email marketing’s core requirements - targeting, relevance and quality.

Can I get an “Amen!”?

While email can and does play a great supporting role in the customer acquisition process — such as with a timely & requested follow-up to a trade show conversation or cold call — it is not a stand-alone acquisition channel.  Consumers rule the inbox, and they abhor anything that smacks of spam.

Why people hit the Report Spam button -- from MarketingSherpa

In this day & age where consumers may have up to 23 inboxes to check, they aren’t about embrace unsolicited messages (”cold emails”) or their senders.  Rather, they will punish them harshly by hitting the “report spam” button.  And when they do, yet another company will learn the harsh lesson of how the use of email, and email alone, for acquisiton can have some devastating consequences to your overall email deliverability.

If you need to acquire new customers, there are plenty of media that will deliver from SEO to paid search to trade shows to good ol’ fashioned advertising.  When you want to make real money, however, break out the email to nurture your new-found and existing relationships.  That’s where the killer ROI is.  And that is where subscribers reward you for putting their needs first.