How retailers are failing to get the even the email basics right

In the all important run up to the Christmas season (yes, it’s not that far off – in the retail world anyway!) it is now more important for brands to create engaging, relevant marketing strategies. At eCircle we were interested to find out just how well retail brands are communicating with their consumers through email.  Driven by our curiosity we conducted a study of top UK retailers to analyse how effectively they used email as a method of communication. To carry out the study we signed up to all available newsletters from the Top 100 Hot Shops/Websites as listed by the IMRG and Hitwise.

Here are some of the results:

•    Retailers that had option to sign up to newsletter but never sent any emails out: 19 per cent

•    Retailers that failed to deliver regular email communications: 29 per cent

•    Retailers that failed to send a welcome message: 60 per cent

•    Retailers that didn’t have a newsletter sign up option: 10 per cent

•    Retailers that had option to sign up but needed mobile phone number or credit card: 6 per cent

As you can imagine we were quite surprised by some of the findings that seem to indicate how some big retailers are failing to get even the email marketing basics right.

Based on these results Simon Bowker, UK Managing Director at eCircle was invited to be guest author in Direct Marketing International Magazine. In his article ‘Retailers failing at the first e-hurdle’ he suggests  three key steps retailers should take to improve their global email marketing strategies:

The three golden rules

1. Incentivise: Target new customers with a relevant incentive. One of the most well-known examples of this can be applied to ‘basket abandoners’. Industry research demonstrates that up to 75 percent of online shoppers abandon their shopping baskets before completing the checkout procedure. To win back this lost sale you can trigger an email response offering a compelling incentive for products that the customer has already shown an interest in. However, it’s advisable to limit offers to products above a certain value, and cap the number of incentives per subscriber.

2. Remind: Show lapsed customers why they signed up to receive your newsletter in the first place. What did you use in your original message and can you try to re-employ this tactic to encourage users to respond to your emails now? Overall, make sure your remarketing campaigns are based around users’ identified interests. If this doesn’t work then it might be worth removing these subscribers from your list. A drastic step, yes, but it’s better to have quality over quantity.

3. Reward: Identify frequent buyers and reward them with appropriate offers. You could set up a triggered loyalty scheme campaign where subscribers are rewarded with exclusive discounts, points for every £1 they spend or voucher codes if they spend a certain amount online within a set time.”

Read the full article here.

Regular email communication is intrinsic in engaging potential customers, rewarding loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases. The basics of email marketing shouldn’t be that difficult to get right if you follow the ‘three golden rules’.

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Blink.

Have you ever read any of Malcolm Gladwell’s journalism ? I’m currently re-reading Blink – The Power of Thinking without Thinking .

One of the stories he tells is  about the Getty Museum and a purchase of marble statue dating from the sixth century BC, known as a Kouros. The vendor provided Getty’s legal team a whole bunch of documents relating to its most recent history. A geologist used an electron microscope, mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence to state that the statue was old, it wasn’t some contemporary fake. It was purchased.

But there was a problem.

A number of art historians and experts just took one look at it and it felt wrong. They looked at it and felt an ‘intuitive repulsion’, and they were absolutely right. In the first two seconds of looking – they could see that it wasn’t right

Well, “Blink” is a book about those two seconds’.

It’s a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions.

Indeed, it could very well be about when you see an email in your inbox:

What do you see? What makes you decide within that blink of an eye whether to open or delete?

This isn’t a discussion about subject lines or time of day broadcasting (in fact it’s not a discussion at all – it’s me giving an opinion).

It’s more about who is sending you the email. I’m in the office a fair few hours every day and am on the receiving end of a number of ‘conversations’, some digital, some verbal, some that are physical – body language is another story. But which of their sources make me listen to what they are saying? Whose voice within an instant switches my brain into gear or turns my ears off?

•    Who do I want to listen to?
•    Whose Tweet will I read?
•    Whose email will I open?
•    Who do you trust not to waste your time?

I think it essentially boils down to what I’m expecting to hear or read. One of the reasons email engagement drops over time is because what the brand is sending me just doesn’t do it for me anymore.

And why is that? Is it because I don’t like the colour of the emails once I’ve opened them? Probably not.

It’s much more likely because it never seems to be for me:

•    It doesn’t recognise my shopping habits
•    The content doesn’t match their opening line (the subject line)
•    It takes no account of my relationship with the brand
•    They don’t even use my name!

As Seth Godin states on his blog, ‘It’s what every marketer knows!’ It’s about Relevance, Resonance.

The first few times I get the email the novelty factor alone probably gets me to open it. But eventually not getting the right content will leave an imprint on my brain that ultimately results in me dismissing it in the blink of an eye.

Content is king. Get the right content to me at the right time and in the right tone and I will not only open your email long term, I’ll read it and act on it. Maybe not in two seconds, but that’s ok. Long live the King!

Ps. One of the key indicators that the statue was real, was that the surface was covered in a thin layer of calcite which can take thousands of years to form.  It also seems that it is possible to ‘age’ the surface of the statue in a couple of months using potato mould…

More from Malcolm Gladwell at his blog.

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Feedback Welcome

I’m in sales and I hate losing deals! Any sales person worth their salt should be the same (whether they admit it or not). There are thousands of reasons for not winning a pitch; some valid and some totally ridiculous. Either way, it is the most difficult part of the job…you can spend months – even years – on a pitch and no matter how close you are to winning, you get nothing in this game for finishing in second place.

Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate how difficult it must be from a client’s perspective. No-one likes having to say ‘no’, especially when you know that the other party has put in a lot of work and time on your brief. I can forgive a potential client choosing another supplier, no matter how strange their decision may seem sometimes. What I can’t forgive, however, is when a prospect won’t give any feedback as to why they’ve chosen another partner. Feedback is a vital part of the sales process. It’s what helps companies and individuals grow and improve.  I can bear to lose a pitch (I’m never happy about it, obviously!) if it means the feedback from that process helps me/us improve in the future and win more business as a result. Linda Richardson talks about the importance of  ‘Improving Yourself Through Feedback After a Lost Deal’ and I would agree, providing the client gives constructive feedback.

Giving no feedback at all is inexcusable. Giving nonsense or false feedback is just as bad or unhelpful. Here’s the worst piece of feedback ever: ‘We chose X because they were cheaper. Period.’ Despite what anyone might think, I genuinely don’t believe that anyone makes a decision purely based on cost. If I saw a Ferrari on Ebay ‘Buy It Now’ at £100, would I buy it? No, obviously not.

Here’s the sort of feedback that IS helpful:

‘We chose supplier X based on the fact that their costs were competitive, but they weren’t actually the cheapest. We went with them because one of our marketing team had used them before and was familiar with them. We also know they have functionality X, which we don’t believe you have. Also, they have a partnership with Company Y and we work with them too. We saw 10 suppliers and you made it to the last 3 and we ultimately made our choice based on these key criteria’.

I would really respect the client that gives me that feedback.

If you are reviewing suppliers, I would ask you to map out your feedback strategy before you begin the review and outline this as part of the brief/RFP (all the best ones do). I would also ask that you offer a follow-up meeting, call or structured feedback document to unsuccessful providers. That’s my feedback anyway ;-)

Thanks in advance.

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Unsubscribing: Why are companies still getting it wrong?

We’ve come a long way and it’s taken for granted that companies now include an unsubscribe option within their email communications. However, it still surprises me how many make this such a tricky process, e.g. making you login to edit your preferences (if I could remember my password, I probably would, but by then I’ve already lost interest/concentration…)  I won’t name names, yet some of those still not offering a one-click unsubscribe mechanism are big retailers who probably should know better.  This is a good blog post from Econsultancy looking at the main UK retailers’ unsubscribe processes so they’ve happily done the research for me, thank you Graham Charlton.

So why is this important? I’m a good natured kind of guy, so I tend not to click the ‘this is spam’ button. However, I’m in the email industry and am therefore not the norm, but for those that do, this results in the sender having high complaint rates which, put simply, result in poorer deliverability. People just won’t accept that they have to keep receiving these emails. Why it’s so frustrating for people like myself is that this is actually one of the less complicated areas of email marketing: a clear unsubscribe link with a one-click process. That really is it.

In addition to the above, companies are now able to make this even easier through the provision of a ‘List-Unsubscribe’ header. A simple process, this allows for an additional link within the header that has no impact on the creative sent.

Easy to do, obvious benefits for delivery and a tick with the ISPs, it seems to be a no brainer to me and something that you should definitely be talking to your ESP about.

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The Email Address – The Key to Multi-Channel Marketing

I’ve written recently on a variety of sites about the life that is still left in email marketing – (see for example Social Penguin). With the variety of marketing channels that marketers have to contend with to reach the customer’s ear, are we missing a trick with the importance of the email address?

J-P De Clerk talks about email being his ‘interaction hub’. ”Skype sends me a mail when I missed a call or when someone left a message. Twitter does when someone sent me a DM. Facebook sends me emails when I received an invitation to be “friends” or a mail. LinkedIn friendship requests and group updates: it’s all in the inbox. FriendFeed connections: inbox. StumbleUpon messages, Digg friends, YouTube subscribers, Delicious, comments on my blogs, statistics, social media engagement data: it’s all coming via email. No wonder my email client is my RSS reader as well.”

A Clickz article talks about how the inbox is destined to become the personal dashboard of many

”The integration of social, mobile and e-mail has already begun to settle inside the inbox. Gmail lets me update my status on Facebook, send a tweet, update my blog, and write an e-mail to my mom – all from the same interface. Yahoo integrates with IM and its “What’s New” tab shows status updates from a wide variety of services. Even a beta version of Outlook 2010 integrates social networking. Facebook and MySpace have announced plans to provide primary inboxes as part of their communities. All of this is now accessible everywhere from PCs to iPads to smartphones.”

Even my own blog and Twitter accounts supply me with news about individuals interested in my thoughts.

Jonathan Macdonald of This Fluid World spoke with great engagement at the eCircle conference in Munich about the focus on the individual or citizen as he put it and that focus does need to include an understanding how they lives around using the technology of today

It seems that we are witnessing a real opportunity for the email address to be the key to the many disparate and yet connected channels that today’s consumer (for want of a better word because being a consumer is just one of the mind sets individuals can be in at any one time) logs in and out of repeatedly and frequently during their day (and indeed night).

Client marketers or their communications agencies can create a master key to each of these channels, and use that in conjunction of a better understanding of a ‘consumer’s’ mind set and the channel they are using at that point to ensure that not only the right message is sent at the right time, but also though the right medium.

Of course there are many challenges on the way – such as multiple email addresses, privacy issue and obviously understanding our customers or potential customers better.

But then Rome wasn’t built in a day

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It’s not rocket science

Following on from my post on ‘It’s not how clever you are..it’s how unclever you are’ ,here is a simple chart from Marketing Sherpa that really demonstrates that at least with email, it can be as simple as giving Relevant Content.

With Relevancy comes Engagement…long live the Conversation

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How to make a great first impression with a welcome email programme

My colleague Mark Robertson recently wrote a great blog post entitled ‘Hello and Welcome’ on some points to consider when conceiving a welcome programme. I wanted to follow on from what he’d talked about with some hints and tips of my own by providing you with a checklist for devising a successful welcome programme.

But before jumping straight in it’s important to get the overall objective of a welcome email strategy right. It can be helpful to think of a welcome email like a first date! You will probably spend time planning where to go, what to wear and what questions to ask on the date, all with the aim of making the best possible impression. Similarly with a welcome email you should make sure you get off to a good start, remembering that first impressions do count.

Once someone has signed up to your newsletter you need to make them feel valued, reassured and appreciated. If you only confirm a person’s subscription then you’re missing a trick. A welcome programme provides you with the perfect opportunity to engage new customers, drive sales and set the tone for your future relationship.

Welcome email checklist

1)    Say thank you

• In subject line or in body of email
• Retain customer loyalty and gain repeat business

2)    Reward your new customer:

• Voucher welcoming them
• Free shipping on first order

3)    Reassure, remind and reflect:

• Confirm their account as it reassures your customer their registration was successful
• Remind them why it was a good decision to do business with you
• Every contact you have with your customers should reflect your brand and reinforce benefits

4)    Make yourself known

• Ensure the recipient knows the welcome message is from you!
• Include the company name in the sender field, subject line, or both

5)    Other things:

• Include link back to your website
• Include login details if applicable
• Make your welcome message/subscription confirmation timely
• Highlight key areas of your website

Welcome email exampIes

This site has a diverse range of welcome emails examples here. If you have any interesting welcome emails (good, bad or ugly) do send me a link via the comments box and I will endeavour to use them in a future blog post.

Welcome and Customer Warm-Up Programme Package

A well constructed welcome programme isn’t just simply a question of saying ‘hello’ it is a sequence of optimised messages to new subscribers and if you get it right you might reach date number two!

At eCircle we offer a Welcome and Customer Warm-Up Programme Package. This package aims to make the process of planning a customised welcome strategy and deploying it easier to handle. To find out more about what this package includes then call us on +44 (0)20 7618 4200 or contact us here

You may also be interested to know that we will be bringing out an extensive Email Welcome Study very soon, so be sure to watch this space!

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Its not about the Technology Stupid

I recently read an interesting article on how Apple’s iPad was changing the way we build business relationships and have conversations.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be another article talking about the iPad …there have been a few of those already and I already own that T-shirt.

I was intrigued by the logical progression in which it was said that this new piece of technology could open up the conversation with customers. It flowed something like this (with my own little tweaks)

New Technology = Superior user experience

Superior user experience = Easier consumption

Easier consumption = more consumption

More consumption = more chances to connect

More chances to connect = and do what?

Now there’s the $million question – we often forget that ultimately it’s not about the technology but about the customer, and what we do with that connection when we have it.

Even wikipedia’s definition for CRM now includes the phrase ‘Once simply a label for a category of software tools, today, it generally denotes a company-wide business strategy embracing all client-facing departments and even beyond’

Technology allows us to do many things bigger and faster but not always better – the better only comes together when we put the customer at the heart of what we do. What we do might include email marketing, it might be social, it might be old fashioned in-store activity but whatever we do, we have to ask ourselves ‘‘what’s in it for the customer?’’

I recently sat with a client where we reviewed the ‘point’ of one of their communications. The round table brought forward 5 different USPs that were related to business needs – not one of them put the customer’s needs at the forefront.

At this point I’m going to borrow from Joseph Jaffe’s book, ‘Flip the Funnel’ where he describes ways to turn technology to your advantage. I’ll borrow just 5:

1.    Technology should bring out the humanity in your company, not mask it – don’t pretend you’re something that you’re not. Ryanair are a no frills airline – the way they use their website and email programme reflect that.

2.    Adopt a multi channel approach to building relationships. The easier you make it for customers, the more they will engage – using email as a case in point, don’t let it work in isolation of all the other channels you use but rather use it to support or initiate those conversations you are having.

3.    Consider tiered systems for different segments – don’t talk to all your customers in the same way: is it really a surprise when your engagement levels drop because your newsletter is a ‘one for all’?. Segmentation doesn’t have to clever, in fact it’s often how unclever you are that really counts

4.    Automation is not always the answer. In email marketing the more you can automate towards ‘lights out marketing’ then the more efficient you can become. But your CRM strategy needs to have that human touch sometimes
And last but not least….

5.    Personalisation is the gift of technology, intimacy is the gift of humanity. Email is great..but don’t forget the bunch of flowers.

So whatever we do to instigate, facilitate or react to conversations (the whole point of technology) let’s not forget that the ‘C’ in CRM is for ‘Customer’…and not for ‘Computer’.

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Crossing Borders with Email Marketing

With the growth of the email marketing industry both in Europe and on an international scale at eCircle we are being asked more frequently by clients what is the most effective way in which to carry out an international email marketing program. Consequently many in the email industry are also discussing this topic. Tamara Gielen, for example, spoke at a DMA event recently on this very subject. You can view her presentation slides here.

As you’d probably expect devising a local version of each email you send isn’t just a simple case of translation. There are many factors to consider to ensure your email is both specific and relevant to each user and their country.  If you are planning to move into international territory with your email marketing here are some points you should consider:

Think local: Segment your database by country and take into consideration different dialects, currencies and language preferences. Some recipients may also prefer to receive emails in English rather than a native language so ensure you have the correct preferences.  It’s important to have someone based in each country check the design and content of each message.

Use your ESP: Most professional ESPs will have experience localising email communications, so take advantage of this! Email broadcasting tools, such as eCircle’s eC-messenger software, enable brands to include dynamic content which can be matched with user/country preferences and to carry out highly targeted segmentation strategies. A good ESP will have relationships with international ISPs thus aiding email delivery.

Best time to send: Time zones must be considered, hours people work, national holidays and when people typically take time off work. For example, people in the UK typically take time off over August when children are off from school, whereas in the US school holidays vary from state to state, even city to city! Once you’ve planned the best time to send your campaigns you should automate this to reduce workload.

Email format: How much content you display in your emails can affect how well your campaign does from country to country. In the US, it is usual for articles to be accessed via a link in the email rather than displaying the whole thing. In other countries, the expectations is that the article will be displayed in full. Localisation of landing pages and forms should also be taken into account.

Test types of content: What works in one country might not work so well in another so test the email content and design until you get it right. Once you know what content works best your ESP should be able to build an email template around this. Content can be matched with user/country preferences and relevant content inserted automatically. For testing tips read this blog post by Gianfranco Cuzziol.

Consider personalisation preferences: In some countries, personalisation works well. In others, it can have the opposite effect with the message seeming too artificial or informal. Recipients may also have privacy concerns so try to limit the amount of personal information displayed.

Foreign laws: When broadcasting emails to different countries ensure you’re compliant with regulations. Opt in and opt outs can vary, in Germany for example, double opt in is required. Take note particularly of privacy regulations and use of personal details.

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Growing your Email List

My colleague, Mark Robertson, just wrote an interesting blog on Welcome Email Programs. I thought I would add to this by discussing the very first point – growing that email list.

With that in mind, here’s my checklist of things to consider when growing an opt-in email list ….plus a few additional comments/opinions:

What are you looking to achieve – quality or quantity?

Put simply, is it double opt-in or single opt-in?

•    Double opt-in: As Mark suggests, best practice would be to take a double opt-in approach when capturing data. Anyone within the industry would have a hard time arguing against this, yet this isn’t the norm as it isn’t a legal requirement.
•    Single opt-in: The most common method used, yet all too often people are simply collecting with growth targets in mind and not really thinking about why? Write down the objective.

What are recipients opting-in for?

There are two quick wins here – point of sign-up and welcome program.

•    Sign-up: We hear people talk about ‘competing within the inbox arena’, so let subscribers know what they can expect to receive straight away (e.g. newsletters, promotional offers, both, …). I’ve seen examples of some retailers actually giving a click option to see an example newsletter (e.g. www.elc.co.uk/SignUp.php). No confusion here.

•    Welcome Program: A ‘triple-whammy’ here.  A chance to thank them for joining your email list, inform them about what they can expect to hear and, most importantly, your first opportunity to get a recipient engaged.

What to capture?

A few things to cover here. The reality is it might be an area to test – email only vs. full data capture. Things to consider would be:

•    Industry: B2B would differ from B2C (e.g., organisation vs. post code).

•    Types of Data: If you stick to the types of data that can be used for personalisation, I don’t think you can go too far wrong. If you’re not at that stage of your contact plan, then there’s no need to worry, collect that information by way of ongoing process (e.g., reintegration of click behaviour, preference centre/edit profile).

•    Type of Communication: If you perform other forms of marketing communication (e.g., mobile), capture that data BUT be sure to give them that preference as an option.

•    Frequency: I’ve heard it discussed that you should give a recipient a choice of how often they wish to hear from you? A good idea in theory, yet how would they know? That’s not to say it’s not a good idea, yet it might work better to have a preference page link within the email so this can be done after they gain a feeling for your contact frequency.

•    Sharing Data: The recipient has opted to receive newsletters from your brand. Make it absolutely clear if you intend to share their data with ‘trusted 3rd party partners’. If not, both brands will suffer, yours most.

Where else can I capture data?

Numerous places, write them all down and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised:

•    Online: Both new and existing customers. If they have to sign up to receive these emails, make sure any unsubscribe process is still 1 or 2 clicks. I hate those ‘can’t remember password’ scenarios.

•    Offline: I bought my Godson a present from Baby Gap just the other day. As soon as I finished my transaction, the till assistant was tapping my email address into a hand-held device ….she looked terrified when I quizzed her as to where that was sending my email address?! No spelling or hand writing problems here for Baby Gap. Tim Watson wrote an interesting blog about How to grow email lists through offline touch points read more here.

OR

•    Lead Generation Specialists: Oops, shameless eCircle plug time: www.ecircle.com/en/products-services/lead-generation-services

Generally, when reading a blog I tend to work to the 5 minute rule – any longer and it’s eating into something else I need to be getting done. So whilst this subject could warrant the breaking of this rule in its importance, I’m going to end with one comment. With email list growth requiring such a detailed thought process, do you know your list growth rate versus your rate of unsubscribe …? I’m often surprised as to how many don’t, worth a check I’d say.

Other related articles can be found below;

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/2008/10/new-email-marketing-22-ways-to-build.html

http://dmaemailblog.com/2010/02/16/generating-new-email-recipients-from-facebook-apps-why-integration-is-the-key-to-success/

https://ecircleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/email-relevanc…t-go-far-wrong/

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