MindComet

Welcome Messages: Another Reason Why They’re Important

About a month ago, we talked about a possible head to head email battle: Brooks vs. Reebok We wondered how Reebok was going to message to runners who signed up as a part of their Run Easy campaign   The first message came today… Promoting their line of Pink Ribbon products and their sponsorship of the 2007 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all about promoting and raising money for causes such as these.  This email does a fine job of mentioning the upcoming walks and it contains a click-through to purchase Reebok Pink Ribbon products.  My disappointment in this message comes from their first attempt out of the gate to message to subscribers who have registered on a site dedicated to running, is message about walking.  Not very well planned.

Reebok could have softened the blow by starting out with a Welcome Message.  I would be more open to receiving messages about special initiatives Reebok is involved in if they would have acknowledged my subscription, and welcomed me as a subscriber who signed up on the Run Easy site. 

Matching the look and feel of their website, explaining the benefits of participating on their site, and heck, maybe even a surprise iTunes download to encourage participation in the “Hear” section, where site visitors can browse and add their running playlists to share with other runners.

Advantage:  Brooks

As the running email marketing campaigns kick up, we will continue the discussion.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 17, 2007

Avoiding Message Saturation

Guess does a good job of sending out well designed messages.    We like them so much; we mentioned some of their tactics back in February. 

The registration process to receive email from them is pretty painless and asks for basic information.  First Name, Last Name, Email Address Zip Code and Gender are all required.  The only optional field is Birthday.  Of course I filled it out, in hopes of getting a present in September, who doesn’t love birthday presents?  There is also an area to select my email preference, HTML, Plain Text, AOL or No Preference.

The last area of the registration, Shopping Preference, is also required.  It contains four pre-checked boxes, for Guess Women, Guess Men, Guess Shoes and Guess Accessories.  When I registered, I left all of the boxes checked, because I didn’t want to miss out on anything.

I have provided Guess with the information they asked for, and after several months, they have failed to utilize any of it.

Yesterday afternoon, I received two separate messages from Guess.  The first message was about Summer’s Easiest Look for Guys.  Cool – I agreed to receive messages about Men’s Clothing.  I didn’t think anything of it.

Until five minutes later when I received the second message about Summer’s Ultimate Look, this message had a female model and links to the clothing she was wearing. 

Five minutes…

With a little more attention to detail, Guess could have avoided over-messaging to their subscribers.  Sending to segments based solely on shopping preferences (that were determined with pre-checked boxes) isn’t the best of plans if you are planning on sending to multiple segments on the same day.  Consider sending one combined message.  In this case sending out a Summer Style message with both Men,s and Women,s clothing might have been a better option.  Hollister has had some compelling dual-purpose messaging in the past.

If that wasn’t an option, Guess could have segmented their list by gender.  Sure, I am on both the Men’s and Women’s lists; however, by segmenting by gender, I would have only received one message.

If they just aren’t up to either of these suggestions, waiting more than five minutes, say at least a day, preferably two before sending the next message is a good way to stay in good graces subscribers if there is no other way around sending two messages.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 16, 2007

Don’t Miss Opportunity:  Use Forward-to-a-Friend

As I was reading through my email first thing this morning, I had the usual messages from retailers telling me all about their sales and promotions and free shipping.  Standard board of fare.  Some of it was compelling and some of it could have benefited from some better creative.  But that’s another story…

What I noticed with a majority of the messages was a lack of forward-to-a-friend functionality.  Of course, I can click forward through my email client and send the message to my friends that way, but these big brands are missing out on capturing data associated with forwarding these messages by adding the functionality to do so, such as the number of messages forwarded through the tool and how many new subscribers resulted from forwarded messages.

The forward-to-a-friend call to action in the email serves as a visual queue to remind subscribers to send the message to their friends.  Without the reminder, many subscribers will simply not pass it along.  It just doesn’t occur to them to do it.

Message rendering is another benefit of integrating this functionality into your email marketing campaign.  I know that when I use my email client to forward HTML messages to my friends, the messages never look right.  So the messages I thought about sharing with my friends this morning, didn’t get forwarded.  I know it’s too big of a hassle for them to see what I thought they might like.  However, using a forward-to-a-friend tool in the message, almost guarantees proper rendering.

Retailers who are not including this functionality in their messaging are missing the boat.  Missing an opportunity to grow their subscriber base and increase their sales.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 15, 2007

Oh, the Irony

start rant//

If you own an Xbox 360, you’re most likely a subscriber to their Xbox Live online feature.  Well, I do own an Xbox 360 and guess what…  I play games online. Yeah yeah yeah… point and laugh all you want.

When signing up for Xbox Live, you’re also offered to sign up for their email list, which I opted in to without hesitation.

So I have been receiving messages here and there for the past six months from Xbox.  Their emails are designed modestly; its content is concise and personalized with my gamer tag.  Last week, they sent out two emails.  One focusing on systems updates, the other focusing what I’ve been missing since I played last.  I skimmed over both relatively quick, but one thing was glaring at me.  Both emails had the same header:

Please add to your address book to ensure delivery.
Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007.

Does anyone see the irony here?

Xbox 360— a product developed and manufactured by Microsoft—sends out emails to their users and they say in plain English, “Hey nerds, this simply won’t work using our new email software, because well… that would just make too much sense”.

You would think that those responsible for Xbox 360’s emails would at least design them so they’d show up for those using Outlook 2007.

//end rant.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 14, 2007

Going it Alone

There are some things in life you need help with.  For example, I wouldn’t attempt to change the oil in my car, simply because I don’t know how to do it.  I assume there are some nuances I would have to learn, such as the weight of the oil, how many quarts I would need, regular oil or synthetic and what type of filter I would need.  I’m sure I could figure out how to do it, but I prefer to leave it to the professionals.

Last night an email from a Tampa area restaurant chain was in my inbox.  I had never received an email from them before, however I remember providing my email address to them on a comment card last September at their St. Pete Beach location. 

I can almost imagine the marketing department on Monday saying, we have all these email addresses, we should send them something…  Without fully understanding how to do it.

One extremely wide, giant image of the restaurant mascot (who looks like a curmudgeonly old man) dressed up like a mom, knitting a scarf.  The copy read “It’s time to treat Mom” The entire message was clickable and it lead back to the restaurant homepage. 

There was no call to action.  Okay, I think we all know that Mother’s Day is this Sunday.  I’m sure the thought is to drive offline sales on Sunday, traditionally the busiest day all year in the restaurant business.  But I’m not sure, because they’re not really asking me to do anything. 

By setting goals ahead of sending a message helps in determining the copy and links in the message.  As simple as it is, tell me to take mom to your restaurant on Sunday.  Another option would be to suggest I buy a gift certificate and link me to the place I can purchase it.

The message did contain an unsubscribe link, but it was missing a physical address.  It the little things, the best practices and the legal issues email marketing professionals are well versed in that make a difference.  There is no need in going it alone, if you’re not sure what you’re doing.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 11, 2007

Segment, Segment, Segment

There is great value in using email to drive your subscribers to participate in offline promotions and events.  When you’re planning your email communication, consider segmenting your list by store location or at least region.  If you choose not to segment, make your click-through steps as easy as possible.  For each additional step I have to take to find what I’m looking for, I’m more likely to drop off because sometimes it’s just not worth the trouble. I would guess other subscribers feel the same way.

Yesterday I received a message from Pottery Barn.  The subject line read, “Decorating Class at your Local Pottery Barn Store”.  I can attend a class on May 20th that will not only teach me how to host a backyard party but also how to furnish my space in style.  The small print told me that class size is limited and to call my local store for times and to reserve my space.

With some simple segmentation based on zip code, Pottery Barn could have easily and dynamically provided me with the closest location to my address, the class times and even a way to RSVP online, or at least a phone number.  They didn’t do that, but they did give me a store locator and a place to enter my zip code.

When I entered my zip code I received a Certificate Error in IE 7.  I chose to continue through and was required to start over by entering my full address and zip code again.  This returned the ten closest locations. 

It seemed like too many frustrating steps to get to the phone number to even check on the class.

I revisited the sign-up process on the Pottery Barn Website.  I originally opted-in from a Benjamin Moore promotion several weeks back.  I entered my email address and received a pop-up thanking my for my subscription.  There was also a link to update my communication preferences.  Maybe Pottery Barn didn’t have all the information they needed from me.  I clicked the box in hopes of providing them with enough data so they could better target their message.  My only options were to opt-out, change my preferences for other Williams –Sonoma communications or to request a catalog. 

It might be a better option to gather all of my information in one spot.  By asking for more information about me including my address and then providing a checkbox regarding the catalog, Pottery Barn would have more of the right tools needed for targeted communication.

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Posted by MindComet on May. 10, 2007

An Email Experience

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Posted by MindComet on May. 09, 2007