Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

In email marketing, if you aren’t planning a week or two ahead, you’re too late. To plan a timely and relevant campaign – and avoid “blasting” - you need to give yourself some time to let an idea “marinate”, create unique content, creative, landing pages and the like. We’re here to help jump-start that process.

Below is an Email Marketing Calendar of real holidays, wacky holidays, and pop culture events in August and September that you can utilize to develop timely and relevant email campaigns

August 13th – International Left-Handers Day

If 7-10% of the world is left-handed, there’s a good chance your email list is the same way. Have you ever watched a left-hander use a pair of scissors? If you have, you know that the world is designed for us righties. Even if you don’t have any products for lefties, such as Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton, a simple shout-out would probably go a long way. If you do, that would be an amazing and rare segmentation opp.

August 15th – National Relaxation Day

Cue the massage music and fire up the black tea! It would be hard to make s case that reading email is relaxing. It’s more like the exact opposite – except for maybe Inbox Zero. Because the holiday is about unplugging and recharging, maybe you can leverage this before the 15th, and let your subscribers know they won’t be hearing from you that day, out of respect for National Relaxation Day.  Then go ahead and queue up a great email for the 16th or 17th. Namaste.

August 16th – Roller Coaster Day

The Roller coaster was patented on this day in 1898. See if you can beat this splash-worthy email from Beach Park in Brazil.  If ever an email embodied the spirit of the Email Marketing Calendar, this is it.

August 19th – National Aviation Day

There are less than 1 million pilots in the USA, but over 1.5 million people take a flight each day in America. If you ever had a chance to make a case that your products or content are worthy of those mostly miserable hours packing, traveling to, waiting for, flying on, waiting for, traveling to, unpacking…today might just be your day. (I personally couldn’t do without my Bose Noise Cancelling headphones, almonds, and an Esquire.) If you have some great advice on traveling, don’t be stingy!

August 21st - Wilt Chamberlain’s Birthday

There are 3 numbers that spring to mind here you may be able to tie to pricing or creative:

- 7′1″
- 100
- 20,000

August 26th - National Dog Day

“Spoil your dog on this day and always.” If there is no relation to dogs with your services, how about connecting with your audience on a more personal level?  Create a gallery on Facebook of all your employees dogs and ask your audience to head there and Become a “Like” (this “Like” thing is hard to work into a sentence, maybe stick with “Fan”).  A good opportunity for Email Marketing and Social Media collaboration.

August/September – Back to School!!!

Let’s be honest, there are very few “school kids” on your email list. You need to connect with parents. You can do so in 2 ways – sell them on things for their kids, or sell them things to pamper themselves.

Things for the kids: You’re really going to have to connect with a budget-minded parent in this economy. A sale isn’t enough, you need to resonate with their state of mind.  Here’s an example: “The last calculator you will ever need to buy…for 30% off!”. A sale is not enough right now. Go deeper and connect with the emotional and long term side of buying. If the hand-me-downs are going to keep your audience from replacing or upgrading, you better change their mind. Or, go for retro/nostalgia connection and remind them of how much they loved their Trapper Keepers and new duds. Connecting with their memories might be a better approach.

Things for the Parents: I don’t have children, but those I work with are ready to get their kids back-to-school. A week night dinner or mid-day lunch might be the perfect gift offer right now. From a B2B perspective, late afternoon webinars and marketing events will see more attention. If you are doing heavy Back-to-school messaging, you may want to mix in an option in your preference center for a subscriber to specify if they have children or not. If they don’t, a nice offer for a non-parent would stand out with all of the other kid related messaging.

August/September – Labor Day (Sept. 7th)

With the lack of economic growth, it looks like another Staycation weekend for Labor Day. Anything that can be used for fun at the house or at a park is good to promote, make sure the shipping options are clear and the items will arrive on time. Sometimes, people need more than a product, they need a reason to use it. Give them a reason, then sell them your product. This weekend also marks the beginning of the holiday email marketing season, and competition is going to be fierce. As I said with Back-to-school, discounts aren’t going to be enough. Your going to need to do better. Stay tuned for next months Email Marketing Calendar where we’ll talk about how you can cut through the noise this holiday season with your subscribers.

Here it is, your May Email Marketing Idea Calendar. May is interesting month for marketers. The sun is coming out, people are starting to plan vacations and think about having fun. What a perfect time to establish a good season-long relationship with your subscribers. Time to brighten things up in your emails and have some fun with campaign ideas and creative.

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

Saturday May 1st – Kentucky Derby

The “Greatest Two Minutes in Sports.”  Talk about an event rich in tradition! Roses, Mint Juleps, fancy hats, bottles of milk – the list goes on and on.

Tuesday May 4th – National Teacher Day

On National Teacher Day, thousands of communities take time to honor their local educators and acknowledge the crucial role teachers play in our society. Giving a discount code or special for teachers would be a nice touch. Or perhaps a gift campaign to allow your subscribers to purchase something for the teacher in their life.

Wednesday May 5th – Cinco De Mayo

If you sell goods or services, think buy 5 get one free, $5.00 off, 10% off all products that end in 5… you see what I am getting at. If you are a destination, Americans are always looking for a reason to go out and party. Why not celebrate Cinco de Mayo at your establishment or event. Make sure you get it on their radar a few days in advance, then send a reminder early on Monday.

Thursday May 6th – International No Diet Day

KFC, there has never been a better day to promote the “Double Down“!

Sunday May 9th – Mother’s Day

A holiday that needs no explanation, it’s for Mom. But how do you stand out in a crowded inbox? (more…)

Here it is, your April Email Marketing Calendar. April is an interesting month. From April Fools to Tax Day to Earth Day, the emotions run the gamut.

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

Thursday April 1st – April Fool’s Day

April Fool’s Day is the one day of the year you have free reign to play practical jokes and pranks on family, friends, coworkers, and most importantly your email subscribers. I will warn you, this is very dependent on your product or service. If your content is heavy and serious, you will want to consider whether a joke is appropriate. On the other hand, it may be the perfect opportunity for you to loosen up your tie and connect with subscribers on a different level.

Sunday, April 4th – Easter Sunday

The nice thing about Easter is that you have multiple angles you can work from a marketing standpoint. Easter bunny, Easter eggs, Easter basket, etc… One idea to consider is to add a hidden element to your email layout, which is essentially a hidden item that is only accessible by discovering a hidden link (known as an “Easter Egg”). Since users don’t typically spend a great deal of time with an email, you need to make sure the hover isn’t to difficult to locate – think 20x by 20x pixels instead of 5px by 5px.

Wednesday, April 7th – No Housework Day

Think of all the great products, services and locations that can be enjoyed instead of housework. Procrastinators world-wide will rejoice with your No Housework Day special!

Monday, April 12th – Walk On Your Wild Side Day

Push your edgy content on Walk On Your Wild Side Day. Some fun creative of your staff or some of your more eccentric content will do the trick. Lou Reed approves.

Thursday, April 15th – Tax Day

For the procrastinators out there, April 15th might not be the day. It might be the 16th, after a good night of sleep and dreams of refund or less worry about payment just paid. If you want your subscribers to blow off some steam and celebrate, it might be interesting to A/B split the 15th & 16th and see what works best for future campaigns. Stay away from politics and focus on the value your content of offer provides.

Friday, April 16th – High Five Day

National High Five Day originated at the University of Virginia in 2002, and has since spread across the globe. Anything and everything can be high-fived, and gives a perfect opportunity to focus on the social/viral side. The official website gives some great ideas. Can you adapt them to your email?

Monday, April 19th – National Hanging Out Day

The goal of this holiday is not to sit on a couch, it’s to educate communities about energy consumption. National Hanging Out Day was created to demonstrate how it is possible to save money and energy by using a clothesline. Can you come up with a list of ways to save energy with your product or service? If not, maybe just in general?

Thursday, April 22nd – Earth Day

This year is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, and a chance to provide the tools and structure for individuals and organizations to organize around environmental issues. The official website offers ideas and tips to take action.

Wednesday, April 21st – Administrative Professionals Day

We all know how important the administrative professional is, don’t we?  Celebrate them, empower them, reward them, or spoof them (in a fun way). Think about your list…how many of them consider themselves “Administrative Professionals”?

Last Friday in April - National Arbor Day

You can find the official date for your state here. Continuing on the environmental kick in April, how do you reward your subscribers for planting a tree?  How can we prove that they did it?  Easy: through user-generated content on Flickr, Twitpic, YouTube, etc. Sounds like a perfect chance to seed a social campaign through email!

See you next month for the May Email Marketing Calendar… in April.

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…)

One of the bread & butter stats of Email Marketing, the “Open”, is really only the beginning of the story. The company Quantivo, who sent me the email that inspired this post,  could never know the damage this “Open” did to my perception of their brand. All they know is that there is a good chance I saw this email and possibly read/scanned it.

But why did I open it?  Because they played a trick on me.

I only do “Name & Shame” posts when I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned. This is definitely one of those moments.

While this was a clever trick to get me to open the email, the ramifications of this action are much worse. (more…)

Next month, I will be launching a Podcast series where we will cover both Email Marketing and Interactive topics that will focus on how to improve performance of your online programs.  I already have some great guests lined up who are prepared to go in depth on their success as well as provide tips and advice.

The series will be called “The Tip Jar with Alex Williams”.

So how do you win the Wii game?  i though you would never ask.  We will be announcing this podcast to our Email subscribers via email.  That’s where you come in.  Here’s your chance to flex your creative muscles and provide a subject line that will change peoples lives.  Three elements to get your started: Curiosity, Excitement, Actionable.

Post your idea in a comment below.  The winning idea will be used and we will post the open and click thru rates after the email launches.  You will also win the best waste of time ever – Mario Kart for the Wii.

Good Luck!

PS – You can sign up for the eROI Newsletter Here

eMarketer is featuring results of new surveys on Email Marketing. The studies are showing that most marketers are sending their campaigns on Monday & Tuesday, followed by Thursday, Friday, Wednesday, Sunday, & Saturday. These results do not take it into account performance or conversion, only marketer preference.

Also covered in this article is a study on Subject Line length in relation to response rates.  The research indicated that shorter subject lines resulted in higher open and click through rates.

As always, each audience is different, and only through testing will you find out what works for you audience.

eMarketer: Two Basic E-Mail Tactics

Screaming Deal (Nau: Off the Grid)

What’s comfier than Santa’s lap? (Pier 1 Imports)

Men’s SALE NOW 60% off! KAPOW! (Barney’s New York)

Yelp: Piping Hot & Liquored Up (Yelp – Portland)

Now even MORE $5 Tees! Come and see! (Threadless)

Don’t Miss Out! 24 Hour Sale + Last Minute Deals in NYC and Vegas‏ (Hotels.com)

Jingle Jams: A Holiday Music Mix‏ (NPR Music)

One cardinal rule of email marketing: If you think everything has been checked…..check again.

This email from Heineken, “a frosty glass of beer from Holland” as Duck from Mad Men called it, most likely wasn’t meant for me:

The obvious error here is the “(TEST with Espanol link)” in the email subject line (Don’t get me started on the noreply@ email address). While these types of gaffes amuse people like me and Dylan Boyd from The Email Wars, they have to leave Joe Consumer very confused.

As I went to check my preferences….

Apparently I opted in to the “small_test” list. I am assuming they also think I may speak Spanish.

My goal here is not to beat up on Heineken, everyone I know in email marketing has made mistakes. The takeaway here is to be very careful with your test groups. Double check every aspect that a subscriber sees so it is seemless from their normal experience with your messaging.

If they know it is a test, it’s not a test anymore.