Seamless Email Marketing

As parents often do, I asked my kids the other day what they wanted to be when they grew up. My son said he wants to be a professional tennis player, my daughter said she wants to be on American Idol – That's very exciting stuff to a five year old…

I wasn't offended that neither of them wanted to follow in my footsteps and become an email marketer. The best email marketing plan should be seamless enough that the target audience can't put their finger on it. There shouldn't any thought by subscribers about how a message just for them made it to their inbox. Other than email marketing peers, your subscribers shouldn’t be saying, "Now, that's one fine email campaign."

A recent post by our friends at The Email Wars shows a great example of seamless email marketing. Asking for preferences after the fact is a great way to segment your lists, or ensure you are capturing the correct preferences of your subscribers, because sometimes things change.

Another example is the registration process for email communication from Old Navy. By asking subscribers up front what they are interested is important so you know you are sending the right messages to your subscribers. When I registered, I selected the 'Women', 'Men', 'Boys' and 'Girls' categories. - Yes, my family is like a walking Old Navy commerical. Old Navy would waste a lot of time and effort sending me messages about teenagers' and babies' clothing - I have no need for it, and by not checking those boxes, I told them that.

The message I received this morning was directly related to the choices I made at registration. And while I am cognizant of the reason I received a message touting the latest in little girls' styles, the other moms who have subscribed to this Old Navy Email Campaign should only be thinking about how stylish their future American Idol is going to look this spring.