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Email Marketing Problems: Are You an Email Assaulter?

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Is your company guilty of email assault? When it comes to your subscribers, how do you know the difference between regular communication and aggressive bombardment? It’s not as simple as you might think.

Consider that according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal—”Stores Smarten Up Amid Spam Flood“—some of this country’s biggest retailers by e-commerce revenue sent the following estimated pieces of email in 2011:

  • Spiegel: 663
  • Neiman Marcus: 534
  • Lands’ End: 376
  • Gilt Groupe: 362
  • Toys “R” Us: 349
  • Williams-Sonoma: 328

More or less?
The highest average monthly retail email volume in 2010 (December) was 18.2.* That breaks down to roughly 4.5 per week, or a little more than one every 2 days. The average monthly volume for that year was around 11-12, or roughly 3 per week. Guess how many emails Apple sent in all of 2011? 26. Yes, that’s one every two weeks. What’s the magic number for your business?

I’m not going to claim that your company should necessarily imitate the largest retailers that are sending 6 emails per week or go Apple’s opposite way: rather, consider the point that even if your business is only sending one message every two weeks, if you’re giving the right people what they want, you’re going to cash in sooner or later (DMA average projected ROI for email, 2012: $39.40 to $1). It’s the value and regularity in the messages more than any particular frequency that matters.

So, how do you know that you might be guilty of email assault in the court of subscriber opinion?

5 Ways To Know You’re a Spammer

 

1. You blast like Neiman Marcus, but you’re not Neiman Marcus.

Yes, you’re the stalker who ignores restraining orders. The cliché ”absence makes the heart grow fonder” is foreign to you. Message overkill is the norm, not the exception. You’re giving customers a whole lot of information, but not the information they want.

2. You have an obscenely large database, but you don’t customize your messages.

The secret to Neiman Marcus keeping its unsubscribe rates steady while increasing open and click-thru rates despite sending 534 subscriber emails last year is its use of customer data to customize its messages. By targeting based on purchase history and website behavior, the luxury department store gives customers the precise content that is known to appeal to them. Lesson: Using “Big Data” to segment can help save you from an ugly situation.

3. “Less is more” sounds like bad business to you.

You subscribe to the notion Bud Konheim, CEO of Nicole Miller Inc., elaborated upon in the above article (as quoted by its author, Dana Mattioli):

 ”You get into this mind-set that the more emails you send, the more sales you generate.”

Konheim followed that by revealing, “But that can really start to annoy people.” A typically easy way to annoy people is to send them a high volume of messages in short time periods (this can apply to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter updates as well). Make those messages unwanted messages that crowd out the messages they actually want to read, and you’re wearing out your welcome.

Consider that many people might think that more than one message a day from a good friend is too much, especially if that friend is forwarding spam or a link to some cat video you’re not actually interested in watching. If people don’t have patience for the friend (or the cat), they’re going to have even less for you, the company, unless you offer them something of value. If you’re able to offer value in each of your messages—whether or not you’re sending 1.46 messages per day (a lá Neiman Marcus)—then more power to you.

 4. Your open and click-thru rates plummet.

Pretty self-explanatory: Fewer people open your emails after each send, and fewer of those that actually do bother to open the message take the next step of clicking thru to the landing pages that reflect your offer(s). This is a sad fate.

 5. Your “unsubscribe” rates are skyrocketing (or worse, your relegations to the spam folder).

While dissatisfied or apathetic users may not follow your links or even open your messages, the next logical (and worse) step is actively leaving the list. If you have increasingly large percentages of your database opting out, this can mean one or two things: your list is bad or you keep pushing the wrong message. If your list is poor quality (containing outdated or otherwise not fully opted-in readers), consider proactively cutting out the subscribers that have shown no activity in the past 6-9 months. Before you put them in cold storage, you might want to try a last-ditch, “We miss you”-type campaign with a special offer to re-engage. However, don’t expect the world. The smarter choice would be to refine your pitches to the slimmed-down list and resurrect the recruitment of new subscribers through enticing offers (with a double opt-in mechanism). (See additional tips for doing email right.)

News flash for CMOs: Digital growth trumping traditional
Mattioli’s article also revealed these nuggets from Forrester Research: That online sales accounted for 9% of total 2011 U.S. retail sales, and they’re growing at a rate >2X as fast as brick-and-mortar sales. At the same time, the DMA tells us that in 2012 Internet marketing in general will surpass direct mail in sales driven to the tune of $652B to $642B.

CMOs, don’t let your marketing department’s email messages turn into the disaffected loners of their beloved subscribers’ inboxes. Delivering too many (or really bad) messages may not be a felony, but imitating a stalker will hardly flatter you in your readers’ eyes.

As online sales increasingly make up a larger percentage of total sales, both in retail and elsewhere, make sure you’re not turning off one of the most potentially significant sources of digital revenue: your email subscribers.

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*Source: DMA 2011 Statistical Fact Book/Responsys, “Retail Email Year-End Trends,” 2010.

Photo courtesy of Mulad via Flickr.

Posted in Big Data, Content Marketing, E-commerce, Email Marketing, Predictive Analytics | Tagged , ,

 

Can You Find Success with f-Commerce?

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There are quite a few reasons to doubt the effectiveness of f-commerce (Facebook commerce).  However, with the amount of people on Facebook and the time they spend on the site, it’s clear that if done right, e-commerce stores on a business Facebook page can be extremely beneficial.

It seems that industry leaders themselves have varying opinions about how successful a Facebook store can actually be.  For instance, some people believe there’s no future in f-commerce whatsoever while others, including Mark Zuckerberg himself, claim it’s ‘the next big thing.’

Angry Birds even threw itself into the f-commerce arena when it recently launched in Facebook by allowing players to purchase toys, playing cards, backpacks and more.

No matter what your opinion on Facebook storefronts is, f-commerce isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  So if it makes sense for your business, you need to embrace it.  Ecwid, the 2nd largest f-commerce platform, feels that an e-commerce app on Facebook pages can boost sales by 15% through a study that analyzed more than 2,000 of their accounts.

What most businesses do not understand is that social media is a two-way street.  There is a big difference between traditional marketing channels and social media channels.  That’s why ROI is difficult to measure.  There is no ROI in acquiring new fans alone, but if you put in the time you will be able to monetize your fan base.

Here are a few steps to help successfully promote your products or brand on Facebook:

  • Fan Acquisition – create a compelling reason for someone to ‘Like’ your page
  • Be a Giving Brand – give something of value to your fans
  • Measure Engagement – when you have 10% of your fan base talking about you, you are approaching the time to start monetizing your fans
  • Exclusive Deals – tell your fans they are receiving this deal simply because they are a fan – this can get you more fans just from word-of-mouth
  • Attach Viral Discounts – should provide rewards to fans that purchase through an offer on Facebook

With all that said, keep in mind that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ template for being successful with f-commerce.  Instead, brands should listen to Facebook fans, experiment with techniques to drive advocacy, and continuously develop fan-stores to improve the user experience.

 

Posted in E-commerce, Social Media | Tagged , ,

 

Why Developing Content is Like Giving Valentine’s Day Gifts

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Content marketing for Valentine's DayThe world is divided into those who hate Valentine’s Day, those who celebrate Valentine’s Day, and those who fall into both categories.

As demonstrated in Facebook posts, people hate Valentine’s Day because it’s a “Hallmark holiday” or “commercial holiday,” or holiday that essentially places too much emphasis on buying cards and other material gifts.

Since the National Retail Federation estimated that last year’s revenue for Valentine’s Day purchases would be close to $16 billion, it’s clear that Valentine’s Day is, in fact, a commercial holiday. Last year, people were expected to spend an average of $116.21 on Valentine’s Day.

If you’re in e-commerce, this means that you want to take advantage of Valentine’s Day sales.

But you already know that you can develop a theme or strategy to market your products or services for Valentine’s Day. We’re all familiar with the ubiquitous pink and red heart decorations, and copy everywhere seems to incorporate words like “cherish.” However, content marketers need to focus more on the truth behind Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day marketing is typically so full of frills and gimmicks that you can set yourself apart just by cutting down on the fluff. That is, if artificiality is what people really hate about Valentine’s Day, then some honesty will feel refreshing.

February is the perfect time to try a more direct approach to giving customers what they want—not what you want them to want. Whether you’re outlining sales points on a web page or sending out an email, try reducing the sales-speak and just be as straightforward as possible. Customers will appreciate your openness, and this is a practice you can continue year-round.

Show your customers some love

Ineffective content marketing is like giving a gift to your Valentine and forgetting why you’re doing it. Sure, you want to impress your significant other, but aren’t you really just trying to express love and fortify your relationship? You shouldn’t give gifts just for the sake of giving gifts, and you also want to avoid gifts that are showy but insubstantial.

As a copywriter or content marketer, you face the same difficulties a gift-giver does. Instead of focusing on using content to sell something, we need to concentrate our efforts on giving customers valuable information. Valentine’s Day offers the perfect opportunity to give something to customers rather than trying to get something from them (or try to make ourselves look good.)

For example, you can give customers a promotion or discount in honor of Valentine’s Day. Besides good value, customers want information, so you can offer them a useful (but non-promotional) eBook, whitepaper, or webinar. Other general marketing strategies, such as holding contests or giveaways, can help get customers fully engaged with your brand. A kind gesture of your appreciation that truly gets at the meaning behind Valentine’s Day could increase customer loyalty and increase your business in the long run. So get creative and give your customers a worthy Valentine’s Day gift.

 

*Image provided by Enchant_me

Posted in Content Creation, E-commerce

 

12 More Holiday E-commerce Tips

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It’s December the 20th and we’ve been busy sharing
So many e-commerce tips it can be considered quite scary

But please don’t be afraid of our e-commerce skills
They give a great gift: ROI that thrills

So take a few minutes from this season’s hustle
And watch one more video about our e-commerce muscle

And in closing, it’s been fun sharing our tips with you
And now there’s only one thing left to do do

From the e-commerce team, we wish you a sincere
Happy happy holidays and a happy new year!

Posted in E-commerce

 

The Spiders Have Eyes

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It’s been well known for some time that Google Image Search can recognize many images.  You can try it yourself by opening two browser windows and dragging an image from one window to the Google Image Search bar in the other window.  Google will try to identify the image and show you identical and similar images.  This works even when there is no associated identifying information in the image “alt attribute.”

One useful way to use this image search tactic is for comparison shopping:  If, for example, you go to Target.com and drag an image over to the search bar, Google will display all of the other vendors that sell that item.

I recently analyzed a site that sells t-shirts that would occasionally get traffic from the keyword “t-shirt model.”  Since the word “model” was nowhere on the site, it was assumed that the word “t-shirt” was driving this traffic.  However, by dragging the front-page image of a man in a t-shirt into the image search bar, Google classified the image as a “t-shirt model,” thereby confirming that Google is using image recognition to classify Web content and search results.  Just for clarification, this image did not contain a description or alt attribute that mentioned “t-shirt model.” In fact, the image alt attribute only mentioned the brand name of the shirt.

Knowing that Google uses images to affect text search results, you should keep a couple of key points in mind:

  1. Make sure that the images you use on your site are relevant to the content. Minimize backgrounds to assist Google’s algorithm in identifying your image. Text within images can also be recognized by Google, so make certain any words in your graphic or image are relevant to your content.
  2. Continue to use descriptive alt attributes. Although the spiders have “eyes,” those eyes may be color-blind. A blue shirt was identified as a green shirt, and a green shirt as an orange shirt. If color is critical to your product, make sure you include that in your image alt attribute.
  3. You may consider using custom images if you want Google to identify your site as having unique content. Don’t make the mistake of developing unique written content and then use a stock image.

“Content is king,” and images are considered part of your content, so make sure that the images you use on your site are not an afterthought.

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Posted in Content Creation, E-commerce, Google, SEO, Web Design | Tagged , ,

 

Mobile Commerce Optimization Tips

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Mobile Commerce

The number of smartphone owners is increasing rapidly each day. People not only use their smartphones to check email and make phone calls, but they’re also using them as shopping tools.  According to comScore Inc., two-thirds of smartphone owners shop from their mobile device. They make excellent shopping tools, because there are many websites and apps designed to compare prices, get product reviews, locate nearby stores, and purchase products.

If your business has a mobile commerce website or app, the goal is to lower bounce rates and increase conversions. In order for this to happen, your mobile site must have the proper functionality, and it needs to be optimized effectively. I’d like to share some tips and best practices for mobile commerce optimization.

Usability is incredibly important for smartphone owners. Here are a few usability tips to consider that may help lower bounce rates and increase your customers’ mobile shopping satisfaction:

  • Include breadcrumb links at the top of product pages, as well as category results. These features allow users to easily navigate throughout your mobile store.
  • Give your users the option of switching to the desktop website at any time. A link in the footer to view the full site is great for usability. This link should dynamically update to point to the desktop version of the current page.
  • If your business has a brick-and-mortar location, take advantage of the location-based (GPS) feature on mobile devices, as it will help the user find your closest store.

Once you’ve satisfied your smartphone owners with a good user experience, the goal is to get them to make a purchase. In order to make it easy for customers to convert, it’s important to consider the following:

  • Product details, such as product reviews, impact the buying decision of the customer.
  • Nonessential steps in your checkout process add friction, likely resulting in lost revenue.
  • Low content volume on each page is essential. Instead of forcing users to scroll down on pages, split content across multiple pages, or use jQuery tabs to organize content within a limited space.
  • Larger input fields in forms gain attention and decrease typos. Also, any form elements that you can pre-populate with a drop-down select field will decrease form friction.
  • Use a drop-down select field instead of radio buttons, because a list of radio buttons clutters the form and makes it look longer.
  • Replace a long drop-down field with a predictive text input field.
  • Having the shopping cart and checkout accessible from every page makes it easy for customers to complete a purchase.

From an SEO standpoint, here are some technical tips to help your mobile commerce site’s ranking and visibility in Google’s mobile search results:

  • Create a mobile sitemap so that your mobile-specific content gets indexed.
  • Use an “m” or “mobile” subdomain for your site to help Google crawl it and add it to the correct index.
  • Create a robots.txt file with a sitemap protocol listing the location of the mobile sitemap, and upload the file to the root directory of the mobile site.

Be sure to keep these tips in mind as you develop a mobile commerce strategy to decrease bounce rates and increase conversions, and to improve rankings and visibility in Google’s mobile search results. Your customers will buy from you more often, more new clients will discover you while they are mobile-searching, and you’ll enjoy knowing that your website is doing its best job to represent your business to the web-savvy world-at-large.

Posted in Conversion Optimization, E-commerce, Mobile, Usability | Tagged , , ,

 

Stats to Make Any Online Retailer Smile

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Almost $20 billion. That’s how much money shoppers have spent with online retailers this holiday season.

As many of you probably know, the Thanksgiving weekend online shopping extravaganza, which also includes Cyber Monday, was the biggest in history.

No one is particularly surprised, but you might be interested to find out just how big it really was. I’m not a numbers person. However, I know where to find people who can take tons of data and put it into easily digestible stats even my fellow English majors and I can understand.

This time, I found those people on the Google Commerce Blog and the Google Retail Blog (thanks guys!). In this fantastic post, they crunched the numbers and came up with some pretty impressive online shopping trends you’ll definitely want to take the time to read and digest:

  • Searches for “black friday deals” were up 30% from last year
  • Searches for “cyber monday deals” and “cyber monday coupons” grew 15% year over year
  • On Black Friday, 50% of the top 20 rising searches on Google were centered around specific retailers or their promotions
  • On Cyber Monday the term “cyber monday deals 2011” was in the top five growing search terms (not to mention that it was the most profitable day in ecommerce history)

Aside from using the Internet to search for the best promotions, people were also using it to create a shopping plan of attack. “Black Friday store map” and “Black Friday store hours” were some of the popular choices.

Finally, we all know that  these searches weren’t all coming from desktops and laptops. And let’s be honest, a conversation about online shopping wouldn’t be complete unless we covered some of the mobile trends:

  1. “Mobile coupons” searches were up 90% from last year
  2. Retail-related mobile searches on Black Friday were up 200% over last year

What are some of the major retail-related mobile searches? Location-based inquiries and price comparisons are two of the biggest, so keep that in mind when designing your mobile site (you do have one in the works, right?).

Online shopping has been steadily growing in popularity, but this time around the stats blew past years out of the water. Ecommerce retailers should definitely be standing up and paying attention, because the opportunities to grow your customer base and increase your ROI are better than they’ve ever been.

My only question for you is: What is your website and mobile site doing to encourage customers to buy online from you?

 

 

 

*Image provided by Shorts and Longs | The Both And on Flickr

 

 

 

 

Posted in E-commerce, Google, Online Marketing, Online PR, SEO, Usability | Tagged , , , ,

 

Going Mobile With Your PPC Campaigns

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Have you given any thought to how mobile advertising will change the face of online marketing in 2012? Well, with more than half of Americans predicted to own a smart phone before the end of this year, you should. Add the emergence of tablets into the mix, and you have a growing market in need of attention.

Please join Michael Kartson and Michael Goff on December 14th at 1 p.m. EST for their Going Mobile with Your PPC Campaigns webinar. We will cover what to do as well as what NOT to do when it comes to new PPC mobile campaigns.

Why is having a mobile-optimized website and landing pages so important?  What should you focus on when it comes to lead-gen vs. E-commerce? Should you use click-to-call or display ads?

Register for our webinar to get the relevant information you need to make your 2012 mobile PPC campaigns successful.

Posted in E-commerce, Mobile, Paid Search | Tagged , , ,

 

Want Your Website to Make Money This Holiday Season? Give Customers What They Want – and Fast

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The 2011 holiday shopping season is well underway, and online retailers are certainly reaping the benefits.

But trust me, you aren’t going to get a chunk of those sales just by having a website. If your Ecommerce site isn’t prepared to provide the holiday shopping solutions customers need – and quickly – you’re going to be left in the dust.

Online consumer attention spans are continuing to decline. If your customers can’t find what they need from your website in the first few moments of being on it, they are going to leave and search for a simpler solution.

This SLI Systems webinar emphasizes just how important it is for Ecommerce websites to give customers what they want, right when they want it:

On one hand (and I’m warning you, these are a little scary):

  • The average amount of time consumers spend on websites is DOWN 30% vs. 2008
  • Average number of page views per session is DOWN 45%
  • Bounce rate has risen to 35%

But, on the flip side (there is hope!):

  • The amount of online ordering sessions has DOUBLED since 2008
  • Well-optimized Site Search converts visitors 4.7 times higher than visits without search

What’s the moral of the story?

Getting customers to the products they want on your website as quickly as possible is the key to increasing online sales and beating out the competition this holiday season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Image provided by Jim Morrison Films on Flickr

 

Posted in E-commerce, Online Marketing, Online PR, Usability, Web Design | Tagged , , , ,

 

QR Codes: An Outsider’s Perspective

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Using QR codes in online marketingQR codes are, in a word, cool. For one, they link you directly from print marketing materials to online content when you scan them on your smartphone. The flexibility of QR codes is also impressive—they can summon websites, text files, and more.

Sure, I think QR codes are pretty cool. But I’ve never actually scanned one.

Why haven’t I ever scanned a QR code? I simply don’t have a smartphone. Without one, I’m sure I’m in the minority at an online marketing firm like Fathom. I plan to upgrade to a data plan eventually, but until then, I’ll be unable to scan every QR code I see to access the amazing exclusive content I’ve heard so much about.

But whenever I hear about QR codes, I find mixed messages. Some articles describe how effective QR codes can be, while others lament that they only reach a limited market.

So what’s the real story?

The number of non-smartphone users is still pretty substantial. In July 2011, comScore reported that out of 234 million Americans who have mobile phones, 82.2 million have smartphones. That leaves roughly 150 million cell phone users who can’t access QR codes, not to mention the millions of others who don’t even have cell phones to begin with. And out of all those smartphone users, only 14 million scanned QR codes in the month of June.

The issue with QR codes is largely a matter of targeting the right audience. comScore also reported that QR code users were more likely to be male, teenaged to middle-aged, and at higher income levels. This demographic, in some ways, confirms my suspicion that QR code content isn’t really geared to the types of people who don’t have smartphones anyway.

Don’t forget about me!

When using QR codes, it’s important to keep in mind that they’re only part of your overall strategy. The fact that QR codes reach a limited audience reinforces the idea that you should use a variety of platforms to market exclusive deals. Are you offering a great coupon through that QR code? Attract your non-smartphone audience members (like me) with some kind of incentive on Facebook.

While it’s easy to reach a diverse audience through a well-designed content strategy, I’m not sure that those of us who want a smartphone but haven’t gotten one yet are fully recognized as a significant share of the market. But perhaps not being able to scan codes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Reading about QR codes and seeing them everywhere makes me realize that when I finally get a smartphone, I will probably spend a few weeks scanning every code I come across to make up for lost time.

Does this sense of exclusivity mean that QR codes will be a resilient marketing technique? Or will their limited reach cause them to disappear before long? I guess I’ll have to wait and see and hope they’re still around by the time I get a smartphone.

 

*Image provided by James Bowe on Flickr

Posted in Content Creation, E-commerce, Social Media | Tagged ,

 

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