SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

Reading Is Soooo Overrated!

As Jeff mentioned in an earlier post, I recently worked with the folks over at Ball State Univerity’s Center for Media Design on a paper outlining personal and marketing communication preferences of 6 commonly targeted groups. It is always interesting to follow the coverage after releasing a major piece of research like this and to see how different people choose to cover it. Here is a short list of the more entertaining coverage we have received:

• “According to research conducted in part by Ball State University’s Center for Media Design…” No mention of ExactTarget on this one. But of course, this was a pick up by a competitor. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
• “… from an ExactTarget-sponsored survey conducted by the Ball State University Center for Media Design.” I must admit, the two paragraphs on page 3 of the whitepaper about the methodology was a little on the dry side. But really, this was a collaborative project where they did some work and we did some work. We even had phone calls and stuff to compare notes, combine findings, and talk about which findings would be the most relevant to marketers.
  

  If I got credit for David Daniel's work!

• “A recent survey conducted by JupiterResearch for ExactTarget suggested that the 18 to 34 age group is more likely to be influenced by email marketing than…” Now how in the world did David Daniels work his way into this one? David does fantastic work and I enjoy hanging out with him at industry events, but c’mon. Wait, that gives me an idea…
• And this from a UK, “It might be worth noting at this point that ExactTarget are an email marketing company, but they did have the academics at the unfortunately-initialled BS University to back them up.” Gotta hand it to the Brits on that one… funny! That said, it is too easy to dismiss research because it was conducted in part by a email marketing company. The goal was not to prove email superior, it was to find the channels most appropriate for different types of communications. There is a clear shift toward social networks and SMS among younger demographics. Our research supports that, but we also found that assuming that subscribers want companies intruding into these mediums is simply wrong. Marketers must be delicate in their approach to these mediums.
• And my favorite from a company specializing in SMS, “I’d rather you text me!”

Perfect! That is what this is all about… preferences! Some people would rather you text them, others may want you to post to their wall on Facebook. But there is a huge problem we came across: it’s nearly impossible to predict! It is truly a matter of individual choice. Emerging channels–especially social networks and text messaging–are highly personal channels that the majority of people feel are off limits to marketers for one-to-one messaging. Banner advertising, okay. Fan sites, great! Promotional messaging, not so much.

To get the full scoop, download the paper and read it. If you really don’t have the time, let me point out the 3 key take aways: 1) Traditional direct marketing channels such as email and direct mail are not going anywhere. They are the foundation of direct marketing communications for all commonly targeted demographics. 2) For those subscribers heavy into SMS and social networks, it is nearly impossible to determine based on demographics alone what channel people prefer for promotional messages–so we need to ask. 3) Try emerging channels such as SMS and social networks, but take time to understand what subscribers expect through these channels and make sure you take permission very seriously. If you don’t, your subscribers will cease to be subscribers for long.

Why Email Marketing Segmentation Matters This Holiday Season

When the national press takes the time to write an article about email marketing, I pay attention.  The reason is that national reporters rarely understand the nuances of the medium and are, therefore,  a far better conduit for what “real people” think about email marketing.

Last week’s AP article entitled “E-tailers push e-mail discounts to lure shoppers,” is a perfect example.  In discussing how e-tailers are planning to step-up their email efforts due to email’s low cost/high return, the reporter asked a consumer what he thought of this anticipated trend.  The response should serve as a wake-up call to any email marketers who aren’t segmenting their subscribers and personalizing their offers:

“I find them annoying,” said Cory Porter, a Web shopping fan from Washington D.C. who says he now receives about seven per day, twice as many as about two months ago. He had signed up with about nine retailers including Barneys New York, Banana Republic and Safeway to receive e-mail promotions, but thought they would be customized to his needs.

“I am a 32-year-old guy who lives in an urban area with no kids,” Porter said. “In other words, I don’t need blouses, high heels, or kid’s juice boxes.” As a result, he’s opted out with some stores, directing the rest to his spam account. [emphasis added]

Cory’s experience confirms that consumers aren’t using a legalistic definition of spam.  To them, “spam” includes emails that they have requested but prove to be irrelevant to their interests and needs.  Indeed, recent research from MarketingSherpa and Q Interactive found that over 50% of consumers have used the “Report Spam” button to unsubscribe from permission-based email that they found irrelevant or too frequent.

The fascinating flip side to this story is that many marketers have the data that they need to segment and personalize their messages — but they don’t do it.  From the AP article:

The big problem, according to Stephanie Miller, vice president of market development for consulting group Return Path Inc., is that less than 20% of retailers’ e-mails are customized even though stores have the capability of targeting their messages. She thinks it’s because marketers don’t get the resources they need. That will change, she said, because just stepping up the frequency is not going to work in this challenging environment.

There is no question that email volume will increase this holiday season.  The real question is which companies will invest the extra time and effort to segment and personalize their messages.  Those that do will undoubtedly see far better results than competitors who desperately cling to a batch & blast strategy.  Moreover, they won’t have to deal with post-holiday, deliverability hangover caused by consumers who use the “Report Spam” button to unsubscribe.

So if you haven’t implemented those segmentation and personalization plans, now is the time to start.  The coming wave of economic, seasonal & desperation-fueled email marketing will provide a huge opportunity for those who put in the extra effort to serve each individual subscriber’s needs.

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.

A Picture Worth a Sanyo Xacti?

A gentle reminder that you still have 3 weeks to enter our SUBSCRIBERS RULE! Xacti-Mundo Contest and stake your claim to one of two Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 high-def video cameras that we’re giving away.

For full contest rules, be sure to check out this post.  One Xacti will be given to the person who comes up with the best SR! t-shirt slogan while the other will go to the photographer who best captures the spirit of the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy (with or without one of our sought-after foam hands).

Will the fine folks pictured below at the Cheers Bar in Boston (formerly the Bull & Finch Pub to you purists) win?  No, because they are ExactTarget employees and, therefore, ineligible.  Buy you — YOU, however, could be a winner.  So what’s stopping you?

Have they captured enough of the SR! spirit to win a Sanyo Xacti?

Treat Them Better Than Family

A sample family for illustrative purposes only.

BtoB Magazine recently asked me what kind of relationship companies should strive to have with their email subscribers.  My response?  We need to treat them better than family.

My rationale is best summed up by this snippet from my response:

[E]-mail marketers must work to avoid the kind of familiarity with their subscribers that breeds contempt. We must always be focused on serving their needs first. In a family, blood ties can wash away certain transgressions, but in a subscriber relationship, you may have yet to build the brand loyalty that keeps subscribers with you through thick and thin.

For the entire response, visit today’s Ask the Expert column over at BtoB Magazine.

Interview with Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware

As a co-founder of ExactTarget, Chris Baggott has long had a passion for permission-based email marketing.  In his latest venture as founder and CEO of Compendium Blogware, he has channeled his energies into making the world of corporate blogging a far less intimidating and a far more engaging place for companies of all sizes.

We caught up with Chris at Connections ‘08, and he shared his thoughts on the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy, how SR! relates to blogging, and why he may yet be the recipient of a restraining order from one Seth Godin (I kid, I kid!).

p.s. And yes, we have learned our lesson not to shoot interviews with blindingly bright monitors in the background. 

Subscribers on the Street #3

Back to the streets!  In this third installment of our “Subscribers on the Street” inteview series, we give you two questions for the price of one.

We first asked folks how frequently companies should send marketing messages via email.  We then followed-up and asked people to explain how their email inbox differed from their traditional, postal mailbox.  The responses are as varied as the subscribers we asked.   Enjoy!

Zen Email Marketing - “Not Two”

While addressing ExactTarget’s Agency Partner Summit at Connections last week, author Steve Yastow did something unexpected.  He dropped a little Zen knowledge on the assembled throng by explaining how the concept of “not one, not two” relates to today’s marketing environment.

According to the practitioners of Zen Buddhism:

“Not one” means that we cannot ignore differences among individuals. Each of us is unique and that’s what gives life its texture and richness. “Not two” acknowledges the unity of everything in its essential nature. The experience of unity expands our awareness and capacity for love. (Beliefnet)

In today’s marketing environment, Steve argues, we would be well advised to reflect on “not one, not two” to better understand and nurture our relationships with customers and prospects alike.  On one hand, we are individuals with unique needs and interests.  On the other, however, when we choose to interact, we create a “not two” entity — a third entity if you like — that exists solely because of our decision to connect with one another.

Whether that third entity — our relationship — is successful depends on a variety of factors.  However, one thing is certain; it will not thrive if we view it solely from the standpoint of purely selfish needs.  Steve suggestion?  Chant “not two” if you must while focusing on what connects you to your customer, and what’s truly important to the relationship will become clear.

Personally, I believe a great many email marketers could benefit from this “not two” exercise.  Too often, whether due to deadlines, staffing issues or business priorities, our email marketing efforts are left to focus on our selfish needs first.  While this may yield short-term results, it also prevents us from evolving one-off customer transactions into long-term customer relationships — relationships that ultimately prove more profitable for everyone involved.

For more insight on how to get to the “we” relationship that email marketing affords, be sure to check out Steve’s book, “We — The Ideal Customer Relationship,” as well as his blog at www.yastrow.com.

For more on Zen Buddhist philosophy, here’s an  overview from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Be warned - the contents may make your head throb with meta-physical pain enough for not one, but two, people.

SR! Xacti-Mundo Contests!!!

I think there’s a rule about blogging while rushed, but I’m ignoring it to get this info in your hands.  I’m pleased to announce our first-ever SUBSCRIBERS RULE! contest.  Make that TWO contests.  Here’s the lowdown:

• 

  Win one of two, sweet Sanyo Xactis!

  CONTEST #1: Just Sayin’ T-Shirt Contest — We’ve got SUBSCRIBERS RULE! t-shirts, but we need great, subscriber-centric slogans to go on the front.  Submit your best SR! t-shirt slogan to subscribersrule-at-exacttarget.com, and the entry judged the best will win a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 High Definition Video Camera. (4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom).

Being the proud owner of an Xacti HD1010, I can tell you that it is awesomely compact & extremely user friendly. It shoots both full HD video and high-quality stills–all to removable SD or SDHC cards (not included).

• CONTEST #2: Photographic Evidence Contest: Shutterbugs, rev up your pixels and submit your photos that best capture the essence of the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy.  Submit your photos or links to your photos (on Flickr, Facebook, etc.) to subscribersrule-at-exacttarget.com.  Again, the winner will receive a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 High Definition Video Camera.

Each contest is open until Midnight EST on Friday, October 31st, 2008.  If you enter, please sure to include your full name, address, phone number, and email address along with your entry.  ExactTarget employees and vendors as well as their families are sadly not eligible to participate.  Void where prohibited.

All images and content submitted will become the property of ExactTarget and may be used in future SUBSCRIBERS RULE!-related stuff.  What stuff?  Don’t know.  But seriously, if you’re going to quibble about that, just don’t enter.  We’d prefer to just remain friends rather than let a little thing like copyright ownership come between us.  Plus–there’s two cool Xactis to be won!

So, fire up the creative juices and get goin’.  Subscribers need to know that we know that they are in charge of this crazy thing called one-to-one & email marketing.  This is just one small step forward in that effort.

It’s All About Me.

For all you visual learners out there, I give you the following image harvested from the depths of the World Wide Web thanks to the copyright infringement fair use machine that is Google Image Search:

It's her world, we just live in it.

I have no idea who this woman is, but I trust that she was having a good time. Why? Because whatever the celebration was, it was all about her. She was probably surrounded by friends, and their sole focus was to make sure this woman — their friend — had the time of her life.

The lesson? Being a subscriber-centric, one-to-one marketer means being selfless. It means using technology to power truly personalized communications that make each subscriber feel like the focus is on them — like they are the only person in your field of vision, even if it is for that fleeting moment of engagement with your email, text or other message.

While it takes work behind the scenes to get to that level of mass personalization, the rewards come in the form of deeper relationships with customers — relationships that positively impact the bottom line.

Now, as for whether such efforts will also yield balloon hats & yard-long daiquiris…well, let’s just say that the ExactTarget Legal Department frowns on making any such guarantees.

Trent Reznor, Email Marketer

NIN - The Slip

So I call the Cleveland area home, and I was perusing the Plain Dealer a while back when this article about Nine Inch Nails caught my eye.  In it, Trent Reznor discusses why he’s giving away the band’s new album, “The Slip,” away “for free.”  His answer couldn’t be more clear:

“By giving it away, we’re amassing a database of potential fans,” said Reznor, 43.”We give it away to you for your e-mail address.”

And there you have it.  Trent Reznor is an email marketer.  By my math–using old-school, record industry economics–this means that Trent puts the value of one fan’s email address at around $9.99 to $17.99 (the price of full-length album download or CD).

Much like Coldplay, NIN gets it.  An invitation into your fan’s inbox is worth far more than a one-time sale.  After all, it’s only rock and roll.

Subscribers on the Street #1

So we hit the street and did something crazy–we asked real people their thoughts about a variety of topics email-related topics.  In this first installment, we asked what type of messages folks like to receive from companies via email.

Stay tuned next week as we get subscribers’ opinions about the dreaded s-word (spam!).