Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

Nothing frustrates me more than getting sent irrelevant emails from clothing websites. For a store that sells to both men and women, you need gender to provide relevancy. Some stores have the data and don’t use it out of laziness, others don’t ask for the information or don’t have it.

I clicked on a link in a tweet recently that said “my favorite website of the moment” which led me to a clothing site called ASOS. They sell to both men and women and used a great segmentation technique I had never seen before. Instead of having a traditional submit/subscribe button, they had 2 buttons – women & men:

The best user experiences on the web are simple. This doesn’t take much thought and is perfectly intuitive.  If you rely on gender to provide relevancy to increase conversions, this is a great first step. I would give it a try – there is no wrong answer.

My only let down was that I didn’t receive a welcome email after opt-in.  This email could have really focused in on the male content and would most likely drive a lot of page views and conversions for ASOS. Maybe it is in the works…

Have you seen other uses of this opt-in technique on the web?  Let us know in a comment below.

The economy is bringing the timeless art of coupons back to the forefront.

A few recent statistics:

34% of female consumers are using coupons more frequently today than they were six months ago, & nearly 70% of the 4,500 respondents said they would print and redeem Internet coupon for products they would be interested in purchasing. - Burst Media

Google searches for the term “coupons” last month for the first time surpassed those for “Britney Spears.” – Ad Age

51% of 18-24 year-old shoppers indicate that they would be very likely to use coupons presented to them online – Platform A & IRA

While historically ambivalent to traditional coupons, younger couples are the most likely life-stage group to use online coupons, indicating an opportunity to influence product choices within this segment – Platform A & IRA

Young couples without children are among the respondents most likely to use a coupon they found online, followed by shoppers with younger children – Platform A & IRA

Like it or not, coupons are moving purchases in the current economic climate. Email Marketing provides the unique ability to hyper-target offers to specific subscribers based on past activity and past purchases.  For example, the Burst Media survey found that three-quarters (75.2%) of women ages 35-54 indicated they would print and redeem an Internet coupon, compared to 62.2% of women ages 18-34 and 67.7% of women age 55 and older. Do you have those segments?  Are you using them? (more…)

It is hard for me not to rage about this email. I have covered My Coke Rewards Email Marketing in the past.  The emails are rendering correctly now, but today we have bigger issues. As always, we can all learn from others missteps, even Coca-Cola.

First off, I have no Coke Rewards points, which is clearly stated at the top of the email. Right next to that zero balance is a note letting me know my points “rollover” into the next year?!?!?  There is a missed segmentation opportunity here. Someone with a zero balance should be notified of all the great things they are missing. The only mention of what these rewards are is “rewarding experiences.”

Second, this email design is very flawed. The copy is too small and the value proposition is not clearly stated.  Always remember to clearly state the expectations with above the fold copy.

Lastly, the long gray sidebar doesn’t seem to have a purpose here. All it does is waste space that could be used for increasing the copy size or show subscriber value of the program. For me, this email misses on all marks.

What would you have done to make this email better?

You’ve all been told how you need to start segmenting your lists and sending more relevant emails to yoru subscribers. Here is an out-of-the-box example from HornyToad.com (who just opened the very cool Lizard Lounge store in PDX).

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How they will determine what to send me from this, who knows.

But I found this to be a fun excerise and break from the same old routine. Think of ways you can get creative to engage your customers this year.

Today I spoke at the Houston AMA on market research and one of the questions that came up is how much should you research your opt-in list compared to going to an external list and qualifying them. Some of the discussion surrounded the purity of market research and how you should focus on blind surveying, “who” should ask for the survey (you or the MR firm), and if you should even consider using your own list.

I worked at Gartner for 5 years managing custom primary research projects for clients like Dell, Microsoft and HP. During that time I did not think even consider in-house lists because of th the “biased” nature of the list. Now running marketing campaigns for similar companies I have found that in-house lists are comprised of those people with interest in your company, so wouldn’t you want to get their feedback first? So why is there such a polarizing effect between marketing and market research? Why can’t they work together? Isn’t the end goal to craft messaging and products to sell more? Aren’t both pieces of information important?

Well we know that gamers love to get targeted relevant emails about the exact title, not a email on EVERYTHING you sell. Creating targeted emails that just focus on the item itself and sending it to the audience that likes a certain genre of game (or item/product) will show a higher interest rate, read rate and conversion rate. This email helped to blow this game off the shelves in record time.

Segementation and targeted emails will convert higher than a newsletter or blanket offer.

Would you like an email that just spoke to you, past shopping, or items of interest? Of course you would. Think of it like when you go to your favorite restaurant and they already know what dishes you might like and start the conversation focused.

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