Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

Here it is, your March Email Marketing Calendar.

Below is a list of real holidays, wacky holidays, and pop culture events in March and ideas you can utilize to develop timely and relevant email marketing campaigns.

Tuesday, March 2nd: Read Across America Day – Dr. Seuss’ Birthday

It doesn’t have to be a book does it? How about blog posts, white papers, or customer reviews?

Thursday March 4th: March Forth – Do Something Day

I’m sure there quite a few things you have in mind for your subscribers to do, don’t you? This day is also used as a celebration of goal achievement.

Sunday March 7th: The Academy Awards aka The Oscars

Lots of folks getting together on this Sunday night, if your site or product or location can enhance their experience, get out in front of it.

Monday March 8-12: National Make a Referral Week

A perfect opportunity to ask and engage your loyal audience to refer you to their friends, write a review, or send a gift to a friend from your store or site. Make sure to make the process easy using forms or social sites. The official hashtag on Twitter for the week is #marw10.

Wednesday, March 17th: St. Patrick’s Day

Green Email. ‘Nuff said. (more…)

In email marketing, if you aren’t planning a week or two ahead, you’re too late. If you really want to plan a successful campaign, and avoid “blasting”, you need to give your self some time to create content, creative, landing pages and the like.

That is why we are starting a new series of posts this year called the Email Marketing Calendar. Below is a list of real holidays, wacky holidays, and pop culture events in February you can utilize to develop a timely and relevant email campaign. We will post this list a week or two ahead of the next month.

Tuesday, February 2nd – Groundhog Day

If a groundhog fails to see its shadow, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow, winter will continue for six more weeks. This would be a great theme to use for consumer campaigns, from apparel retailers to ski resorts to restaurants. If weather is a driving factor in your business, more winter or less winter is most likely something to take advantage of.

Sunday, February 7th – “The Big Game” (aka Super Bowl XLIV)

Due strictly enforced trademark infringement, you can’t use the words “NFL,” “Super Bowl,” or “Super Sunday” in your marketing campaigns. However, you can use colloquialisms such as “The Big Game,” or other generic descriptions for Super Bowl XLIV. Aside from the game itself, you also have the commercials and the half time show which have a lot of cultural currency as well.

Monday, February 8th – Boy Scout Day

A tounge-in-cheek brand might be able to get something out of boy scout day – Scouts Honor!

Friday, February 12  – Abe Lincoln’s Birthday

You are free to create unique artwork of a US President’s likeness, but you are not allowed to use anything that has “authorship”. Abe Lincoln has one of the most iconic and trustworthy brands in American history. How can you buddy up to Honest Abe?

Sunday, February 14th – Valentine’s Day

If this is a big day for your company, hopefully you already have a plan. If you are B2B, here’s an idea: “Will you be our Valentine?” with a link to update their profile or take a survey. Maybe you can use Cupid’s spell to clean up your subscriber data or ask a few questions without having to give something away. Or you could play against Valentine’s Day and ask a subscriber to be selfish and by something for themselves.

Monday, February 18th – Washington’s B-day aka Presidents Day

First off, it’s spelled “Presidents Day” not “President’s Day”. This is a federal holiday and many are off work. It is also known as much for big sales at stores as it is for honoring US Presidents. Creatively, you can really use iconic American symbols and imagery. But make sure to work on your subject lines and copy, as their will be considerable activity.

Tuesday, February 16th – Mardi Gras aka Fat Tuesday

Here’s a day you could really have some fun. Mardi Gras is a great day to have an event or a sale. The opportunities for fun creative don’t get better than this. From a charitable side, you could also send your subscribers to donate to the Katrina reconstruction efforts.

Wednesday, February 17th – Random Act’s Of Kindness Day

Random Act’s Of Kindness Day is an unofficial holiday in order to encourage acts of kindness. This is an opportunity to give something back to your loyal audience of readers. Maybe it’s just to say thanks. Maybe it is a no strings attached coupon for something free or at cost. Don’t send your same old 20% coupon, do something original and kind. Your subscribers won’t forget it, and it could really work to lift your next few emails.

Saturday, February 20th – Love Your Pet Day

This one may be a stretch, but here me out. We are always looking to humanize our companies. How about you send out a link to a flickr gallery or blog post of all of the employees pets? Or, offer a link to the local humane society to adopt or volunteer. We all love our pets, don’t we? This may be a connection you never knew you had with your subscribers.

Sunday, February 28th – National Tooth Fairy Day

This one I am leaving up to you guys, aside from companies that sell children’s products or dentists, I got nothing. Give us an idea in the comments section.


Good luck and happy emailing! Stay tuned for the March Email Marketing Calendar…in February.

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Complete our survey on “2009 Trends in Online Marketing” and enter to win a Flip UltraTM Camcorder or one of several Retail Gift Cards!

We launched a new survey today in partnership with E-Marketing and Commerce – 2009 Trends in Online Marketing. We are setting out to get some data on how online marketers used their online marketing resources (budget and time) in 2009, how they value various online mediums and what they will continue to focus on in 2010.

The results of the survey will give us valuable insight into how various Online Marketing mediums were used in 2009 and uncover what marketers can do differently (or keep doing!) in 2010. Enter your email on the final question and you will be entered to win a Flip Ultra^TM camcorder or one of several retail gift cards.

Email Marketing and Social Media have some inherent differences, namely the ability to provide unique content to each individual subscriber and track each activity of that individual. Will Social Media replace email down the road? The answer is no – not unless it can somehow provide that level of CRM, analytics, and personalization that email provides marketers. Can these 2 medium’s work together? Yes! But they need to be treated with an understanding of the content each user is receiving, and where this content is being shared and discussed. In this post, I’ll cover 5 ways each email marketer can make their email marketing campaigns more social – without devaluing the unique relationship you have already created with your subscribers.

1. Give Subscribers the Ability to Reply to your Email Marketing.

Something that is lost in the discussion of email marketing is that each email campaign comes from an email address. The ability to have a conversation is, and has been there all along. Somewhere along the way, Email Marketers pushed this away. “From” email addresses that start with “do_not_reply@” or some computer generated address that starts with something like “875QR00xza342@” are not the best way to start a conversation. They give the impression that not only will no one answer a return a reply to your campaign, but we don’t want to talk to you – we just want you to “Buy Now” or “Learn More”.

Obviously list size becomes a factor here, but isn’t answering an email from a subscriber a lot easier than handling requests on Twitter or the like? If you are trying to engage your audience, email is going to be the best method. You are not limited to constraints of 140 characters or privacy walls, and you can store this data and add information to subscriber profiles. “Do not reply” is the equivalent of “I’ll hang up an listen” in radio, except they never got a chance to call in. They’re just listening, and possibly tuning you out (changing the station).

How to change this is two-fold: use a real and friendly email address (ex. “feedback@”) and give copy in your emails to promote replies. Then designate your community manager or support teams to answer these requests. Once they believe you are listening, you will open up the doors to evangelists who will share content on other networks and provide positive word of mouth.

2. Avoid Redundant Content

You worked hard to get a user to subscribe to your email list and provide you with their information.  The last thing you want to do is give the impression that Tweets and Facebook Fan Page updates will lead them to the same messaging. Your ideal subscriber will be on your email list, a Twitter follower, as well as a Facebook fan – and have unqiue experiences with each. If your content strategy is to create one message and send it verbatim through each platform, they will turn at least 2, or maybe all – off. Use email for one-to-one marketing messages, Twitter for conversations and sharing, and Facebook for a light, personal, and friendly dialogue.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t market your product or service through each, just adjust the messaging and approach.

3. Stick to the Big 3: Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn

According to SmartBrief, MySpace is a “social-media ghetto”. From a business and consumer standpoint, it comes down to the big 3: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Whether your B2B or B2C, look at the Social Networks that drive the most traffic to your site and match your social sharing links accordingly.   Tweet it, Facebook Share It, or LinkedIn News it, your analytics will tell you this is the right move. Having a bar with 30 random social networking icons is going to get a lot less click through than “Share this on Facebook“.

4. Is it Actionable? Or is it Shareable?

The age old question with email – if there is one thing you want them to do – what is it?  Is it to click and purchase? Is it to read and share?  9 times out of 10, it’s not both.

Pick one.

What Else?

We would love to hear your ideas on the topic, keep this list going in the comments section below!

Today we are going to cover how to add a “View Mobile Version” to your email campaigns. All you will need to complete this is the ability to upload/FTP new HTML files to your hosting server. Nothing horribly complex here, and your web team/developer will yawn at this.

Before we get started, I want to show you an example of what we’re talking about from the Sony newsletter.  Below, you can see the header from their email newsletter, where I have highlighted the call out to “View mobile version“

After clicking through on this link, you are taken to the mobile version of the email in your mobile browser, which you can see below.

Why do I need a Mobile Version of my Emails?

The answer to that question, like most when it comes to email marketing, is “it depends”.  Due to the lack of standards of the mobile inbox and different technologies in play, there is simply no way to design a layout that will work across the landscape. For example, iPhone, Palm Pre and Blackberry Storm to some extent, will do an adequate job of rendering your email, albeit very small. However the top selling smart phone – the Blackberry Curve – will not. And since most people receive the exact same emails on their mobile device as they do in their desktop client, we can’t deliver a unique message to each – it’s all or nothing.  An analogy I like to use is Johnny Five from Short Circuit (filmed right here in Oregon). Just as Johnny Five thinks he is human, but is not, a mobile email client thinks it can read HTML, but can’t. So creating a link to a mobile version is going to be your best way to control the experience.  You will also be able to track the click through on this link to know how many mobile users you have and whether or not to dedicate more resources to this emerging channel.

Linking to the Mobile Version in your Creative

First off, we need some real estate in your email header. Ideally, this should be somewhere near the pre-header, (more…)

I got together with Chad White who runs The Retail Email Blog, a tactical daily guide to what’s going on in the world of retail email marketing.

In this podcast, Chad & I discuss his annual “Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season” for 2009. Our goal is to give you the tools that will help your email marketing program end the year with a bang!  Even if you aren’t a retailer, this guide gives great information on planning, trends, strategies and more.

Listen: 

Howdy folks, and welcome back.  Today we are going to attempt to increase the amount of people signing up for your email list through a little bit of testing using Google’s amazingly intuitive (and free) Website Optimizer. To execute this, you need a Google account, and you must be able to both make visual changes to your site and add code to your HTML. If you have an internal web team, work with an interactive agency (like us), or a freelancer, the changes shouldn’t be too difficult to for them to execute.

A/B Experiment Checklist

There are many elements of an opt-in form that can dramatically affect the conversion rate. For sake of this post, we will choose placement on the home page of the opt-in box. The theory is that if you give more promance to your email opt-in, you will get more sign ups. Following thse steps will allow you to find out if this is true for your audience.

• Choose the page you would like to test
• Create alternate versions of your test page
• Identify your conversion page

To test our thoery, create an alternate version of your exisiting home page, with the opt-in box in a different location. For the page variation, use a name like site.com/index2.html. The page will not be accessible to users unless it is served up by the page loader script.

The conversion page is very important in the process, as this is the validation of a successful visitor. You want to make sure that your thank you page is strictly for your email marketing and not also used by other forms.  Also, if you have a double opt-in process, make sure that you idenitfy the first confirmation page as your conversion page, not the page a vistitor goes to from the confirmation link in an email.  Getting them to opt-in is the point, not email confirmation.

Installing and validating JavaScript tags

This is where things stop getting polite and start getting real technical.  If you are unsure about adding code to your website, forward this link to your web team and they should be able to do it in minutes.

There are 2 scripts, - a control script and a tracking script. The control script should appear immediately after the opening <head> tag of the original page.This is the script that communicates with Google’s servers to retrieve alternative page information, and ensures that individual users are tracked properly, by showing them the same variation each time, and by not double-counting their visits should they come back to the page at a later time.

The tracking script is pasted on all 3 pages directly before each page’s closing </body> tag.  This script sends pageview information to Google, so that visits will be recorded in your reports.  The nice thing about this tool is that it validate the scripts before activating the test and also gives you links to send instructions directly to your web team.

May the Most Conversions Win

One thing I love about testing is that no one is right or wrong until the results are in.  You can best practice and benchmark your site to death. But you will never innovate until you test your theories. If you have an idea and a web designer tells you it’s no good – Test it! If you think a different color button will get clicked on more – Test it!  It’s really fun to watch the results come rolling in. The Google Website Optimizer will declare a winner, but it needs at least 100 conversions, so if you don’t get a ton of traffic, you may need to leave it up for a few weeks.

Testing placement is just one area to test.  The goal here is for conversions.  Anything that relates to getting information or purchases from users is on the table.  Do you have any elements you have tested that provided big results?  Let’s hear about them in a comment below!

I am surprised every email marketing program doesn’t allow subscribers the ability to change the  email address they receive campaigns at. According to Pew,  ”More than half of working adults (53%) have both personal and work accounts.” (You don’t want to know how many I have). You can’t expect that the email address someone used to subscribe to your email program will never change. If you are only giving them the choice to unsubscribe, that is the choice they will make.

Here is an Example: The Email

Here Were the Choices: Preference Center

What do you think I did? If your ESP doesn’t give you the option to allow subscribers the ability to change their email address, you might want to investigate one that does.

First off, Happy Birthday! (whenever your b-day is).

Birthdays are great opportunity to mix up your messaging to an email subscriber and give a non-sale oriented, warm and fuzzy to build trust and enthusiasm with your brand and email program.  That doesn’t mean you don’t get to sell and covert though!  Let’s take a look at how to set this up, automate, and also a few content ideas to get you thinking.

Setting up a Birthday Email

First off, your going to have to know their birthday. The best practice here is to capture that data at the opt-in. You can always get this information later through progressive profiling, but I would recommend adding it to the initial email capture so you can automate the email trigger from day one. Making this a required field is also a good idea if you are serious about birthday emails.

Remember, you don’t need the year they were born, unless you plan on sending different content based on their age. It will also make the opt-in process faster.

Triggering the Birthday Email

Your ESP should have the ability built in to capture this in your form generator. In emailROI, one requirement is to choose the format of the date:

Once you have chosen the format, you will have a consistent format in your database to work with. Then, you can assign that birthday event trigger to a specific email message in your email app. This email will either reside independently or within a list or group.

This email should allow for personalization of name and or creative elements and coupon codes or offers. This also gives you flexibility to contiunally edit the message with out changing your opt-in code.

Birthday Email Ideas

Restaurants & Retail are going to have the most flexiblity here, as they can allow for free items or discounts. Let’s take a look at few that provide these:

Here was an email I recieved from Wendy herself. Along with a birthday greeting, it gives me a link to $1 off coupon I can use at any location.  This is effective and trackable outside the online channel.  They use Coupons Inc. to facilitate barcodes and personalized online printing. They also make good use of the preheader space with “Get Coupon” to tease the present.

Here is an email from Adidas that does a technqiue here that is noteworthy.  Aside from the 15% off coupon, they give a secondary call-to-action to join the Addidas Insiders club. This takes advantage of the Birthday message to cross promote their club.  I would be intrested to know how this element performs. Lesson here is that the email doesn’t have to include only 1 item.

El Gaucho, a fabulous NW steakshouse, doesn’t waste their birthday email opportunity with a small discount.  They come right out with a $25.00 off discount that is sure to drive visitors. Every business is different, but to me, if your going to give someone a birthday gift, give them something they will remember.  A halo effect will be placed on future campaigns to that subscriber, both online and offline.

Before you Implement Your Birthday Email Campaign – Some Things to Consider

I unsubscribed from Ruby Tuesday email list today after a number of clearly untargeted messages. After checking the unsubscribe box and clicking on “submit” I was greeted with the page below.

Apparently Ruby Tuesday thinks you are part of the “in crowd” when you unsubscribe – is this self-admission that their email program is in DIRE need of assistance? Maybe their lack of “listening” is the reason I unsubscribed in the first place.

Piece of advice for Ruby Tuesday, I would urge you to not only personalized your email experience, but also the opt-in and opt-out process as well (at least with a relevant theme like “Hate to see you go” or “Can’t we still be friends?”).