Eureka Email Marketing Sunny Side Up

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If there is one thing I can send out to the universe to represent us human beings it would be this:

Light Humour - How many email marketers do you need to change a light bulb?

Nobody ever removes the bulb - unless it's been inactive for more than six months.

None - The light bulb can change itself using a preference center.

Two - One to change the bulb, and one to point out the excellent ROI compared to other ways of lighting the room.

Two - One to change it, and one to get the appropriate permission from the owner of the socket.

Two - One to fit the new bulb, and one to design it so it works as intended in whatever socket it goes in to.

Three - One to change it, one to design it to work in all sockets, and one to complain that the light bulb still doesn't work in rooms built by Microsoft.

Five - One to change it, two to work out the best day and time of day to make the change, one to ensure the new bulb will meet user expectations, and one to monitor how many people subsequently flick the light switch.

Humour in this industry is hard to find. Please email me when you have some good jokes to share.

From good to great: Email marketing made more effective with Facebook.

Email marketing armed with social media's power of sharing is increasingly used by fundraisers and associations. Nothing is stronger than a friend's recommendation.

While this works well for sharing with friends, ensure that your landing pages (where many donations happen) solicit email addresses as well, thus allowing your list to grow. This is a win/win situation, as the more 'friends' gets involved in donating, the more your opt-in list will grow, and the more people you can influence.

The sample here shows Susan G. Kormen's email promoting their fundraising application within Facebook. It is essentially a nice way for users to extend their fundraising efforts through their network of friends.

As many marketers start to adopt additional integration points with the leading social media sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc), they will also start to utilize email as a way of driving channel adoption. From adoption, marketers will turn to utilizing email for promotion usage and analyzing performance to fine-tune and improve their program through segmentation, personalization, and sophistication.

Today many marketers are simply focused on presence and adoption; however, it will serve them well to be thinking broader in terms of ultimately how to monetize these social media applications. This example by Susan G. Komen for the Cure is a testament to a marketer thinking several steps ahead.

10 tips B2B online marketers must know about engaging social media marketing

A brilliant and comprehensive list of How-to's written by Paula Drum. Originally titled: 10 tips for Social Media Marketers.

There are some key teachings about social media that every corporate social media marketer should know:

1. Every brand can be and should be “social” - Conversations about your brand and products are happening everywhere. You need to be part of the conversation and if H&R Block can make taxes social, your product can be social too.
   
   
2. Just get started – It doesn’t take a big budget to get started in social media marketing.  In fact, much of social media marketing is human capital. Start by listening. Set up Google alerts to look for conversations about your brand or product. Use TweetDeck and set up a brand search to monitor what is going on about your brand or product in the Twitterverse. Then participate in the conversation, just remember to be authentic, honest and transparent and you will be fine.   If you take the first steps to engage in the conversation you will learn more about how your brand or product fits into the social media space and it will help guide any future programs.
   
   
3. Integrated marketing vs. social media - There is a difference between an integrated marketing campaign that includes viral components or online/offline coordination and a social media program. A marketing campaign has a short life; it is singular in desired action and is usually focused on demand generation. A social media program is a commitment to engage and communicate with consumers where the consumer wants to communicate.  If you are going to start a marketing campaign with social elements versus a social media program, you must start with the end in mind.  The worse thing a marketer could do is build a group of fans, friends or followers without a clear exit strategy after the campaign is completed.
   
   
4. Find your brand’s own path – What works for one brand in social media does not mean it is right for another.  For example, the path of engagement with a movie franchise is very different than engaging consumers about taxes.  Remaining true to your brand promise is the best way to approach social media.  Utilize your brand promise as a guiding principle across all your social media efforts.  Reflect it in the content that you create, the tone that you use, and the programs that you develop.
   
   
5. Media $ versus human capital – I mentioned human capital earlier. Companies can spend a lot of money trying to launch a social media program. For the most part, I would really classify those efforts as an integrated marketing campaign. Your approach and funding of an integrated marketing campaign needs to be in line with the size and scope of your overall marketing budget. Social media programs can be a lot more cost efficient from a media budget standpoint, but, you still need human capital to run them. In many cases you may be trading media $ for the human capital needed to run a program. For example if you are taking the first step of listening and engaging in the conversation, there is no media buy necessary. However, you do need to have some person dedicated to scanning and responding.  Ideally, that person is an employee of the company. Why this should be an employee leads to the next tip.
   
   
6. Agencies play a great role, but the voice needs to be the company’s -There have been many company backlashes by having your agency respond in the social media space. Remember that the consumer wants to connect with you, not your agency. Your agencies can monitor and identify opportunities, but it is the company that needs to respond – authenticity is key.
   
   
7. Your agency needs to walk the walk – I hate paying an agency to learn on my dime. When we started three years ago, social media was so new and changing so rapidly that we were all learning together. Today there are many different agencies that are building expertise in social media including public relations firms, interactive agencies and newly formed agencies focusing on social media. As you select an agency partner make sure that they don’t just talk the talk but also walk the walk. Are they active in social media? Does the agency blog or twitter? Judge the agency not solely on their pitch, but also on their actions.
   
   
8. Get legal involved early – Your legal department can be an ally or a roadblock. What you need to understand is that in the area of social media there is not a lot of legal precedence to draw on. This makes your legal department nervous because it is more difficult to know the best way to protect the company. Involve your legal department early and help them understand your goals so you can build a partnership and not hit as many roadblocks. Ask your legal department to help you solve for the risks versus just state that you cannot proceed with a program. There are always solutions to mitigate risk. You and your legal department can find solutions together.
   
   
9. Have a crisis management plan – The recent Dominoes episode clearly identifies the need of a crisis management plan. In a world of 24x7 communications, the brands that can respond quickly to a crisis will be the brands that weather the storm. A good crisis management plan must begin with active monitoring. Judgment will need to be exercised to distinguish a customer service issue from a true crisis management situation. Once a crisis has been detected, the brand will need to respond in a matter of hours not days. Early action will help nip a crisis in the bud before it explodes into something larger. No action or ignoring it will only exacerbate the issue. A brand that is already active in social media will also carry more credibility and rally more supporters to come to the brand’s defense.
   
   
10. Selling the C-Suite or ROI – One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level. Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative. However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment. I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society. The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing. In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers. Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers. Watch Shift Happens and share it with your senior leadership team. It is a great example of how we are living in exponential times.

Business case: Investing in an eNewsletter Marketing strategy

Here are six top reasons your organisation should move into email marketing using e-newsletter.

1. They keep your brand visible periodically.

2. They keep your readers updated about new services/products and offers.

3. They are measurable and can be optimised over time.

4. They position you as a leader, authority or specialist in your field.

5. They nurture relationships with a ‘drip-feed’ approach, preferred by readers.

6. Subscribers provide indirect feedback in the form of unsubscribe, open, and click-through rates.

Maintaining a professional e-newsletter programme is a fixed-cost, high-value contributor to revenues.

Email is the most-used tool in the marketer's arsenal—but there's a pretty good chance that you may not understand its contribution to the bottom line. Email marketing suffers from what is called the resource-to-ROI imbalance. Poorly done email still delivers ROI, but harbours higher consequences such as poor deliverability, insufficient metrics and subsequent unsubscriptions from clients.

Email specialists of good repute can help you implement the best practices that could take your ROI from good enough to great.

Recession; Don't cut off your arms and legs

I just had a client call me yesterday to say due to the recession they have to cut their budget and thus they have to stop using their online communication system. It must be dire times when you have to cut the only means you can afford to keep in touch with your clients. What has this business been doing? Can’t they survive from the warms leads that they have been nurturing?

I looked into their account, alas they have been with us six months and have been communicating every month with their 5,000 odd and growing database, open rates are good and the nurturing program is working great for them. Probing further I found out that the editor of the e-newsletter had been laid off. That’s sad news, I wish I could tell their CEO to stay positive, and keep the communication flowing. At the least, he could start writing the newsletter himself.

In bad times, your clients become a target of every other competitor's market. Keep your clients close at hand, and keep the communication going. Please CEOs, when laying people off, consider asking each of those poor souls what they actually contribute to the business. Yes, each and every one one of them. It may save you from losing an arm or a leg without knowing it.

Segmentation made easy.

Segmentation is the term used by marketers to describe the activity of separating data by profile or behavior.

The reason segmentation works, is because it allows you to target your readers with relevant content. In email marketing, an increase in relevance can greatly affect your desired outcome.

In fact a two to five times increase in ROI of a typical broadcast is achievable through segmentation.

If you find the idea of segmentation intimidating don't worry, as you are not alone. The challenges of doing it "right" (as pledged by the marketing gurus) can be enough to make your brain swim.

Here is what you will need to start

1) You need resources to write targeted content
2) You need resources to design alternative layouts
3) You need to have enough data to correctly target your readers
4) You have to dedicate time to plan
5) You need the technology to do it right.

The truth is, you can do it in a big way or a small one. The good news is, even in a small way segmentation can be very effective.

To make it simple, let's look at the two ways you can segment your readers.

Profile segmentation: When your mail list contains just one attribute other than first name and email address, you can start to segment. Let's say its a female/male attribute. Staying within the same newsletter layout, you can provide a different welcome story or an alternative offer to increase relevance and response.

Behavioral segmentation: When tracking click throughs per article, you can segment your readers by their behavior. For example a person clicking on an article on a certain topic is more likely to respond to an early bird offer to a related event.

In general, behavioral segmentation works better that segmentation based on profiles. To automate an immediate response, you can schedule a triggered email  to go out once a link is clicked.

The inbox is the location, location, location of the internet real estate.

I read the news -- really the paper-based stuff -- over a cup of coffee and breakfast every weekend. I blog and twitter about five days a week, and I check my mail box seven days a week (numerous times a day).

What does this means if you are in marketing?

If you can afford the dollars and time, then you should utilize all these mediums. But if you have to choose one over the others, then email marketing is the stand out performer.

Email marketing tops the list because the mailbox is the most valuable and most visited personal space on the internet.

But remember the golden rule, get permission first.

Why tweet? I already publish an E-newsletter.

You are already writing a regular e-newsletter. The open rates are good and you think you are doing just fine. Tweeting will just be additional work for you and you don't think it will work for your business.

What are you missing out on?

1) You are missing out on market trends, and fresh ideas for writing your eNews.

It's not all about what you twit it is also about who you follow. If you follow your industry experts you will always get the latest news and advise. You will find this an invaluable resource for better content writing.

2) You are missing out on fresh blood for your opt-in list.

If you don't actively twit, you won't have followers, you can't direct the traffic to your eNews subscription page. If you like this idea, don't tweet the URL of your newsletter, tweet them to your sign up form. This way you can capture them before they generate a whole lot of anonymous clicks.

However for this to work you'd better be a good twitter. There's only 140 characters available and your content has better be unique and compelling.

It's not hard and it costs nothing.

Help! I want more subscribers, but I'm not doing anything right.

Here are some common mistakes that others make:

1) Uncooperative website.

You are fixated on your open rates and miscellaneous metrics, and forget to make sure your sign up "call to action" is visible on your website. Or your web developer is not your friend.

2) No promises.

You ask people to blindly opt-in without providing compelling reasons for them to do so.

3) Overly nosy

You ask way too many questions on your opt-in forms.

4) Being shady

You don't provide a privacy policy and/or don't detail what you will and won't do with your subscribers information.

5) Not seeing other opt-in opportunities.

You did not include everyone in your organization on your opt-in strategies. Front desk, support desk, accounts and admin, networkers, telemarketers....the list goes on.

6) Badly designed offline opt-in forms

You  provide little scrappy forms at your front desk that do not provide enough space for email addresses.

7) Unfinished business

You don't add opt-in's collected from your offline forms because they are a pain to decipher. You may find that they have piled up so much that it may be 3 months later that subscribers are finally included.

8) Crappy content

You provide such crappy content that no one wants to forward your emails to their friends.

9) Really crappy content

You provide such crappy content that people unsubscribe in droves.

10) Simply hostile

You go with one click unsubscribe, and have no strategy to persuade anyone to stay a bit longer.

"Here's another e-zine you might find more relevant"

Well done! You've just done yourself out of a job.

-- What else are you doing wrong? Let's make this list grow to 20 points.