Including the 5 "must-know" lifecycle segments
I work in client services for one of the UK's fastest growing email service providers. Although I deal with numerous different organisations and people at various levels on a daily basis, in most cases the range of email topics we discuss is broadly the same.
Email FAQs
The re-occurrence of similar client issues and questions means I invariably end up saying the same kind of things to different people in response.
Here are some of the questions clients most frequently ask:
Is email marketing ‘on the way out’ and social media where we should now be investing?
How can we work more effectively with our email technology?
How can we optimise and save time while increasing our email activity?
How can we ensure we are giving our customers what they need at each lifecycle stage but…
Ideas for increasing your responses by using a more human approach...
What would you say if I was to suggest you take account of your target audience when designing your email program?
Actually, you'd probably say nothing... just roll your eyes and find fresh reading material.
It's not exactly groundbreaking advice.
However, the nature of digital marketing seduces us into thinking of the "audience" as a collection of data or unfeeling robots.
So we have segments, samples, cells and clusters...where each email address is a set of numbers, a sequence of letters and a few database fields.
Of course, each email address also represents a human being (gasp!).
Not a shocking concept, I'll admit, but one we often neglect in the way we design emails and email systems. Yet a recognition of human foibles and limitations helps build better emails for better response.
Here are some examples showing…
Social Media is still a new and scary world to many people and companies. Its a relatively new tool to the marketing world which is, without doubt, changing the way we work and live.
For small businesses, in particular, social media can be a daunting place.
We have created this Digital / Social Media reference for our Expert members that helps summarise all the key paid-owned-earned media techniques for the main social networks.
This post originally featured a crib-sheet from FlowTown to help small business get to grips with the most popular social networks. Unfortunately this is no longer available. We liked the "learn the lingo" summary, as marketers today, we're often translating the labels and vocabularies of the tools and this gives a neat summary.
…
There's more to social-email integration than share buttons
We know from what happens in 60 seconds in social media that we love to share on social networks. This amplification is what makes social media so powerful. We also know that with so many social updates, getting cut-through with social media can be difficult. Step forward email marketing which still offers reach and engagement. The obvious question; how can we integrate them - can they be "better together"? This was the topic for a recent presentation I gave at the eCircle Connect Europe 2012 event. The full presentation is available at the end of this post, but I thought I'd share some of the great examples of companies integrating social media into their email marketing. Thanks to Tim Watson for sharing some of these with me.
Start with who shares what?
Creating shareable content isn't quick, cheap or easy, you need to…
How engaged are users of different social platforms?
Back in June 2011, we shared an infographic showing what happens in 60 seconds in social media, now we're updating it with a new infographic from Social JumpStart. This one has some additions including Pinterest showing that for all our current interest in Pinterest it's nothing compared to YouTube. It's a pity they haven't included Google+ either.
It certainly summarises the challenges we face today as marketers and consumers of content today!
How do you find this - exciting? or scary? I find it both - to be involved in such a dynamic area, but which presents huge challenges in being first and getting cut-through. I created a companion post taming the social media firehose which shared ideas on tools I used to keep up-to-date.
Here…
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08 Mar 2012
Video insights from the MarketingSherpa Email Summit
Just a few weeks ago, I attended the MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas. I brought along my trusty camera and interviewed most of the speakers and several attendees. Needless to say, these interviews resulted in some great insight on a range of email marketing related topics.
GetResponse ran a contest encouraging our customers to arm me with questions to fire at the influencers at the event. Here I've selected four great (common) questions from average email marketers and four great answers from the videos. I've also created a transcript of the answers for you to scan.
You can view all of the videos here.
Does email still work?
John Caldwell of Red Pill Email answers the question: "Why lately are email marketing campaigns not working as well as they should?"
“It’s not…
Case study: KLM's 'Meet & Seat' initiative
In the latter part of 2011, international airline KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced its new 'Meet & Seat' programme. Participating passengers could view each other’s Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and use this information to choose who to sit next to during a flight. I always find it interesting to review how KLM are using social media since they're definitely an innovator rather than a laggard. These often aren't just campaigns, but integrate with KLM services.
Source: Wikipedia
This idea might be good for KLM's PR, but can it succeed? And what lessons can you take back to your business?
KLM's previous use of social media to personalise service
KLM is no stranger to social media. In November 2010 it launched 'KLM Surprise'. This test involved flight attendants searching passengers' social media profiles and meeting…
5 recommendations for delivering effective social media customer service from Frank Eliason
Frank Eliason is widely regarded as one of the innovators for delivering customer service through social media from his work at Comcast, initially delivered through the @ComcastCares Twitter handle. Eliason shows the importance of the intersection between social media and customer service when he says:
“The customer now has control of your brand, and if you really want them to share your marketing message, you must fix the overall customer experience”
“Many would say customer service has always been marketing, but the fact is the companies had a much larger control of the message than they do today. Social media has changed that and the customer has gained that control".
Now at Citibank, Eliason has continued to give great advice on how to apply social media for customer service, and is author of the book …
10 tactics for effective Facebook pages you can implement by 30th March
Value/Importance: [rating=10]
Recommended link: Facebook’s Pages intro
With just one month before switchover to a completely new page layout for companies on Facebook, we’ve rated the impact as 10 out of 5, although that depends on how important Facebook is for your business...
If you’re short on time, I recommend you go straight for the new Facebook pages FAQ for a succinct summary. What Facebook won’t tell you are the marketing tactics that you lose and gain through the new update, that’s what we’ll summarise here, using examples to illustrate the new features.
With an update to a web service, you usually start by looking at what’s new, but with Facebook’s new business pages, what’s most striking is what’s missing since…
Why it pays to review your subject line length and purpose
What we think influences what we say, and what we say influences what we think.
Now what has that got to do with subject lines?
Well, it starts with our certainty that we pretty much know what works and what doesn't. You see similar advice in many places: don't use all capitals, keep it short...that sort of thing.
It's dangerous to rely on intuition and experience all the time
Repeating subject line mantras doesn't always make them right. The fact is, our intuition and experience are not always accurate guides to what works best.
And if you think otherwise, Which Test Won will quickly dispel any illusions.
Consider, for example, Tumbleweed Tiny House Company... when it tested a normal subject line against the all-capitals version, the latter got more opens - not what you'd expect at all.
All caps works for Overstock, too.
And keep…
