Return On Subscriber - Email Marketing Blog

Logitech is not what you would think when you consider cutting edge campaigns, but I was pleasantly surprised when got the email, even more when I saw the site, then it fell apart.

The Email
Solid creative, a great subject line, and good use of best practices (even though the whole email is images). The call to action at the top works great in the preview pane. The branding of “Remote Disasters” is solid - it does not make me feel like you are selling me something. The call to action to pass along to a friend is clearly either the agency’s or Logitech’s poor attempt at viral.

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We have been a Salesfoce.com user for a few years now and it is a great product, but the video on their site is a complete rip off.

Watch the Video

I swear that video looked familiar to theYouTube hit - The Machine is Us/ing Us. Now the question to you is, is this crafty marketing riding the wave of a popular video or is this just a lazy marketing manager/agency that couldn’t come up with a better idea?

Watch the Video

Use the inner circle

Don’t sell to just one customer, sell to their many friends and family, leverage their network, people typically have friends with similar interests and tastes.

There are a number of emails I get where people don’t put a link, mainly newsletters. This email from All Surf Industry, with a 40% off Store Closing sale really frustrated me. You are closing your store, trying to get rid of your stock and you don’t even link to your site or put an ALT tag in your email.

Yes they are local and have their contact info in the email, but people like to click, they may want to browse the site. Maybe there is a reason you are going out of business, your marketing doesn’t work…

I’ve always thought that people who collect emails and opt-in’s for a contest entry should email out the results. I have never had a problem with someone else winning. I would also like to no if someone actually won the Harley, or the trip to the Oscars, or the iPod, or the Starbucks gift card. (I sign up for a lot of contests.)

I look at 2 benefits to sending out the winners name:

1. People will value your brand much more that you were legit and there was a winner.

2. You have an extra opportunity to entice them to more contests, products and services.

It’s a no-brainer to me. I am not sure why you don’t see more people do it.

I can tell you this, you will get a great open rate!

I signed up for the Fast Company “First Impression” newsletter. I was intrigued, especially with the title. As the saying goes, “you only get once chance to make a first impression.”

I was greeted with this:

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This email to me seems misguided and also lazy. You are counting on me to read this quote and click through to read the article, which is just 4 or 5 paragraphs anyway.

Why not just out the full article in the email? Why is there no article title or summary? Why just a quote?

Do I really need this mystery everyday? Do they really just want me to click through and get a pageview for their ads? There are already 2 ads in the email.

I unsubscribed. It can happen that fast….just one email. The old saying is true.

I met with a very motivated individual today who has a pretty great idea for a political website/application. Half way through the conversation we started talking about things like Digg, de.licio.us, and Facebook. He had never heard of them.

It is very important in web/email marketing to keep up with the trends and know what is hot and gaining steam - even if you don’t use it in your own life.

For example, I have a Facebook account (Find me), which I think is a great site and I “get” it. I only have about 6 friends b/c most of my social crowd hasn’t caught up. They are still using the supermarket tabloid-esque myspace.com, which I despise just from a design perspective.

That being said, I need to know if a client has an opportunity to gain traction say through a Facebook app.

I saw Robert Scoble speak last week at the Internet Strategy Forum, as he brought up a great point about the so-called “Digital Divide”. He said that mainly what it comes down to now is people who want to be involved and keep up with the web and people who just want to tune out. There are those of us that live and breathe the web, and those who use it for work, or to look up a movie time or restaurant review and that’s it.

As an email/online marketer, you better be keeping a step ahead of your competition, or as Ray Liotta said in Goodfellas, “you’re dead”.

Me and 4 of my co-workers are in this competition tonight for the Portland, OR Advertising Federation. (Band name: Evil Rock Overlords Inc.) We are the last of the 7 bands and should be going on around 9:30. Each band plays 3 songs. We will be playing Judas Priest, Motley Crue and Spinal Tap. Should be hilarious if you are out and about. This will be your one chance to see me in leather pants or tight jean shorts.

PAF’s Battle of the Bands Presented by Comcast Spotlight
June 26, 2007 / 7:00 PM / at Someday Lounge

PAF’s Battle of the Bands is a night of fun dedicated to those in our industry that have the Rock Star desire! For one night the musical talent in our industry will live in the spotlight and on the red carpet. Many of our member agencies have their own house bands, BotB will feature 7 totally awesome “butt” bands competing to find out who is the best (for this year at least!). It will be a fun night supported by advertising’s most talented - in and out of leather pants!
Buy your tickets at the door, this will definitely be a standing room only night! Rock On!

Event Cost: PAF Members $10.00 / Non-Members: $10.00

I clicked on this banner ad (which I rarely do) the other day. I like cheeseburgers, I like heavy metal, what the heck, right?

McDonald’s “Burgercon” told me to go to the microsite www.Burgerconitson.com. I went, they told me it was on, ran through some amusing flash, and then to IM or email a friend the same URL.

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Huh?

No battle? No personalization? No laughs? No email address/mobile number gathering? Nothing?

Can you tell me what the point of this is? I would love to know. All I see is a misguided viral marketing attempt that probably cost $50k - before media buys.

What a waste of a good starter concept. You need to “flesh” these ideas out Ronald (pun intended). This is really taking the easy way out, at the expense of the user.

What a let down.

So, after a multi-million dollar media blitz, I signed up for MyCokeRewards, which I wasn’t quite sure how I would benefit from (aside from a free coke here and there).

After sometime, I received an email telling me I had 50 free points, and to login and add a confirmation code. I did this, and the process was easy and quick. Good stuff.

Then…it went downhill. A week later I got a similar 50 free points email, which rendered horribly in Gmail, possibly the easiest email client from a rendering standpoint.

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The I get to the site and I am told this….

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You figure one of the biggest brands in the world would make sure this type of thing wouldn’t have happened. You need to make sure you aren’t sending people to a page with a code that has already been used or won’t work.

Testing your creative in all of the free consumer accounts is a must. We use Return Path.

I bought a Diet Pepsi yesterday for no reason. Coincidence?