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How Not to Provide Value to Your Subscribers...And to You
March 28, 2006
Your subscriber is valuable to you, they are your bread and butter, but what is one of the best ways to destroy that relationship? Below is what Constant Contact sent out to its subscribers, which I am one of.
Sending offers of other's products to your list is a great way for a quick buck but what does it do for you in the long term? Most likely it is going to destroy your brand if you did not establish up front that the purpose of your newsletter was to peddle the wares of others.
I did not sign up for this newsletter to be sold irrelivent products to email marketing.
The point of this is that if you are going to co-reg, cross promote, etc. with your business partners, make sure you do it in a way that is of value to your customer, such as a side article in a newsletter, or a press release talking about the partnership and the value to your subscribers and not just an ad.
Think of the email you get. Do you wonder why you get random ads from brands you respect? As a marketer, I look at every email and identify why a company would do this. this Constant Contact ad I can't wrap my head around.
Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 7:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Email has Higher ROI
March 24, 2006
Benchmark Survey: Email Earns Highest ROI
Marketers use a wide variety of techniques to improve response in their retention and acquisition email programs, with varying results, according to a MarketingProfs survey, the results of which are analyzed (premium article) by Return Path, which also offers recommendations. Among respondents who measure their campaigns, 40 percent say email earns the highest ROI, followed by search (28 percent) and direct mail (18 percent). Revenue per campaign is the most-utilized email-marketing success metric, used by 39.8 percent; file size is a close second with 38.3 percent keeping tabs; and revenue per email third at 25.8 percent. Some 35 percent do not set clear success metrics.
Read Full Article
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2006/03/21/benchmark_survey_email_earns_highest_roi/index.php
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Hip Humor Reaches Youth
March 23, 2006
We are regular contributors on web marketing campaigns for iMediaConnection.com. We get asked to review new campaigns and would like to steer you to these from time to time.
This one focuses on fuse TV and was well done. Read our CEO's takes.
Hip Humor Reaches Youth
fuse TV targets youth with a website that offers animation, comedy, downloads and music.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
eROI CEO Reviews Nordstrom Silverscreen
March 22, 2006
Another review we recently did for iMediaConnection.com. Worth a quick read as many people only associate eROI wil email marketing. We actually run a full service agency as well that helps deliver campaigns like the one reviewed below.
eROI CEO Reviews Nordstrom SilverscreenEcommerce Meets Entertainment
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Shopping and entertainment merge in Fallon’s Nordstrom BDA; audiences can watch remixed music videos, and buy the featured clothing while still within the video.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 11:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Are You Spamming Your Customers?
March 22, 2006
Do you know how often you are emailing your customers and prospects? Frequency is key. We always try to work with clients to help them to establish a frequency calendar. Unitl you look at all of the emails, no matter how helpful you feel that they are, you don't know if you are over saturating an inbox and slowly killing a relationship.
It used to be that when you wanted to talk to your customers you had to stop them in the aisles, call them on the phone or go visit them. That was fine if you had fifty customers, but if you had lots of customers there wasn’t a cost-effective way to have a conversation with more than a few. Then email came along and for the first time in history, companies had an easy, inexpensive way to have an immediate, two-way dialogue with all their customers at the same time. This remarkable medium created the possibility of a dialogue with customers that could strengthen the brand relationship, thought leadership and trust, over time resulting in real sales growth.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Mark Your Turf in the War on Email Deliverablity
March 20, 2006
We have been testing out some new social media systems with Google Maps. This is one that we have created using Frappr.com allows people on this blog as well as others mark their geo location. We invite you to mark your turf on the map and tag the industry you are in.
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How do you generate 1,000s of leads in 2 days? How about develop a site that speaks to the core audience, provides a fun atmosphere and a competitive flair. eROI and InFocus built this site to target sports fans by entering them into a contest for a handful of projectors, reinforcing the brand as a top-notch HD experience product. What do you think? post a comment The site's focus is on educated, sports-focusedindividuals that have interest in high-quality, high-value products. The game keeps them engaged. Keep it competitive. Rankings provide a reason to go back to the site and keep it active for the 3 weeks of the tournament.
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| Posted by Jeff at 4:52 PM | Permalink
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This has been an ongoing topic with David and I would like to point you to read his articles and sign up for the Email Insider newsletter. Looking at the value and being able segment and attribute resources should be a focus in email marketing as programs are evolving and our data is getting deeper. IN THE FEBRUARY 20TH EDITION of "E-mail Insider," one of my gurus, Richard Rushing, helped me articulate a basic model for determining the financial value of an e-mail address. Building on this and the response from some readers, Richard added more insight from a strategist's point of view. In the original article, we presented an example in which a marketer determined that the average value of an active e-mail subscriber was $6.40 annually. Further, there were one million active subscribers, for an aggregate list value of $6.4 million. But what does that really mean to the marketer? Here are a few ideas on how to integrate the results into your marketing efforts.
Quick Lead-generation campaigns equal high-dollar prospects
March 15, 2006
Calculating the Value on Subscriber
March 13, 2006
Acting On The Value Of Your E-mail Addresses
David Baker is vice president of e-mail marketing and analytical solutions at Agency.com.
Determine the value of your most engaged segments. The model gives you the average across all subscribers, but you'll also want to know the value of your best customers. The methodology is the same; simply apply the model to the group(s) you have identified as being most valuable. The financial value of their e-mail addresses should be much higher than that of average subscribers. This should also encourage efforts to increase the opt-in percentage of this group.Drive higher incremental revenue. If the number of campaigns is held constant, then targeting becomes a key driver of improved relevance and response. Understanding your customers' preferences, behavior, and demographics is absolutely critical to presenting them with offers that will satisfy them and bring you higher revenue.
Send more campaigns. Since the number of campaigns is a basic component of the value equation, adding more is a simple way to increase the overall e-mail value per subscriber. But be careful, as this approach may lead to more opt-outs, which will reduce the overall list value. It also assumes that incremental revenue per e-mail remains roughly constant. This value may decrease as more people choose to ignore your e-mails (but not opt-out) due to the higher volume. You'll want to test here, and closely monitor your unsubscribe and response rates.
Reactivate inactive subscribers. In the example above, the marketer has one million active subscribers. But suppose the overall list is two million e-mail addresses. That implies there are potentially a million names to reactivate. There are a number of ways to do this, but a success rate of even 5 percent to 10 percent can have a huge impact on the overall value of the list. This is where the model is particularly helpful. By showing the value of an active subscriber, it can help you prioritize reactivation versus acquisition efforts.
Focus on list hygiene and deliverability. This is always an important consideration, but now you can more easily justify the decision to use direct mail (or some other means) to reactivate undeliverable e-mail addresses. Is it worth spending around 25 cents (give or take a few pennies) to reacquire an e-mail address that is worth $6.40 a year to you? Probably so.
Grow your base (carefully). If you have a small number of inactive subscribers, then your efforts may be better directed at growing your base. As always, tread carefully, since sacrificing quality for quantity can quickly drop your e-mail address value. You'll also want to consider your cost of acquisition and list churn data into your acquisition efforts. For example, if you are spending $15 to acquire someone who is worth $6.40 a year, and who only stays opted-in for a year, that may not be the best ROI decision.
Budgeting. This model is one of the many metrics which show the high value and ROI of the e-mail channel. Use it to support your requests for additional resources and budget.
Keep the model current and address any changes. Don't let all your hard work turn into a one-time snapshot that is a "nice to know" number. Once you've set up a process for determining the value of an e-mail address, keep the model current. This way you'll be able to set goals, benchmark against those goals, and immediately identify any problems.
It's a lot of work, but the resulting valuation is critical in taking your e-mail marketing program to the next level.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
The Day-Time Measurement
March 10, 2006
At eROI we have been compiling a quarterly study on the best times of day and day of the week. This data is only based on the results of our customers. Everyone has a sweet spot to target where their audience in most receptive. Is it at work, at home, in the AM, on a weekday? We do not profess that this study is the end all, rather a guide of stastics to plan a review of your own campaigns.
Do you have a plan for frequency? Time? Day of the week, or do you continue the "Shampoo Effect" of Lather, Rinse, Repeat, not knowing that trying other times and days might lead to higher campaign conversions. And does list size and segmentation matter? You bet it does.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 12:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Why One Call to Action Works
March 8, 2006
Drving a new product launch should focus on giving the customer/prospect one task. Do not create multiple links in emails that have one goal. Keep in Simple. Tell them what the new product is, what they need to do to learn more or buy, and drive them to conversion.
Leave scattered newsletters to measure interactions and desires and campaigns to lead to results. Narrow in with a laser like focus and have a landing page in place that replicates some of the creative you placed in the inbox.
What offers have you seen that works. Were they focused? Why did you buy?
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Email Marketing Frequency
March 6, 2006
A question that I am often asked is, "How often should I send my email newsletters?" and of course the answer is the same, "well, it depends", but there are a number of questions that should be asked first:
How long does it take you to develop fresh new content?
What resources are available to you?
How often do you do direct mail?
If you are truely doing a newsletter, monthly is a good starting point, if you can get in a rythem and the newsletters are coming easily to you, try more frequently.
If you notice that your response rates - open and click - are declining recently, take a step back and slow it down a bit. This normally helps your response rates
A question that I am often asked is, "How often should I send my email newsletters?" and of course the answer is the same, "well, it depends", but there are a number of questions that should be asked first:
How long does it take you to develop fresh new content?
What resources are available to you?
How often do you do direct mail?
If you are truely doing a newsletter, monthly is a good starting point, if you can get in a rythem and the newsletters are coming easily to you, try more frequently.
If you notice that your response rates - open and click - are declining recently, take a step back and slow it down a bit. This normally helps your response rates.
Start with an A/B split, mail to one once a month and the other once a quarter, see how the results differ, it is likely that that once a quarter email statistics wil be lowers, but this is not always the case. The other thing to consider if you are looking at emailing less than once a month is the loss of mindshare among your subscibers.
Comments (0) | Posted by Jeff at 4:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Targeting Emails to Gamers
March 4, 2006
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.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBack
Why Thanks Works
March 2, 2006
We are all familar with the gift code. But why not segment and thank your customers directly. I know that a card, phone call or email to tell me that you appreciate me goes miles. And this goes for your brand and customers too.
Don't simply use a gift code each email campaign, unless it coverts, but make these offers valuable and targeted. Watch the results.
Have you seen a good thank you campaign? Tell us about it.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
