Home > Blog > Email Marketing

Fathom Blog

News & analysis on digital marketing & analytics

Page 1 of 612 3 4 5...»Last »

Email Marketing Problems: Are You an Email Assaulter?

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Paul Richlovsky

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.

***

*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 Bud KonheimForrester Research, Neiman Marcus, Nicole Miller

“Big Data” Means Knowing Where to Find the Gold

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Janet Aldrich

Back during the American Gold Rush, most of the people who went out for gold were enthusiastic amateurs who had to search for it the hard way – they’d sit by a stream where gold had already been found, and run water through a shallow pan, hoping for paydirt.

Today, a lot of people using digital marketing – be it email, SEO, PPC or some other medium – are functioning about the same way those miners did; that is, hit and miss and hope for the best. They’re missing out on leads and sales because they don’t have a clear idea of when, where or how to direct their efforts.

That’s where “big data” comes in. To boil it down to one simple image, big data is knowing where to find “gold” in the form of leads and/or finished sales. It means avoiding guesswork. It means taking your database and extending it with additional data, analyzing it and running it through models. The end result is data on your customers that lets you target them in the right way at the right time – thus achieving the results you need.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to be careless about your data. Data that’s not maintained and used correctly can waste money and damage your online reputation, particularly in the area of email marketing. Bounces, invalid addresses and accounts left inactive (which could be spam traps) can mean that your message won’t get where you want it to go. Even in PPC or SEO efforts, you need to know the message you want to deliver and how to time it for maximum effect. Big Data can help you make the right choices.

Is your enterprise a candidate for big data? If you want to expend your digital marketing dollar efficiently, you need to look at the data you use and how you use it. More importantly, you need to know what do with the data once you’ve analyzed it and are ready to implement what you’ve learned.

Big Data is still, to some extent, in its infancy. Now is the time to evaluate your company’s acquisition and use of data and how you can get ahead of the curve.

Posted in Analytics, Big Data, Email Marketing

No More Internal Email!(?)

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Karen Cover

Having to read and respond to emails—and often failing to read and respond to emails—is the common experience that unites professionals in nearly every field. So can you imagine if your boss decided to ban internal emails?

That’s what Thierry Breton is planning to do as CEO of the international IT company, Atos, which is headquartered in France. By 2014, Breton wants all of his employees to opt instead for in-person, instant-messaging, or social media communication.

Why is Breton making such a radical change to the traditional structure of workplace communication? Atos reportedly conducted research on how email was used within the company, which has around 80,000 employees worldwide. According to BBC News, they found that . . .

Employees spent 15–20 hours each week reading emails, both at work and at home

Employees received an average of 100 emails each day

15% of those emails were reported as useful or relevant

Atos does seem to be experiencing a severe problem if they have to read and respond to hundreds of messages each week. We all know how it feels to lose hours of valuable time dealing with emails, but should email really be banned?

Not to fear, email marketers. “External email is a fantastic tool – it’s a fantastic way to communicate between organisations,” said Breton in the BBC News interview.

Significantly, Breton doesn’t consider email an outdated communication method. Email itself isn’t the problem, it’s how email is used, and this explains why Breton only targets internal email. Emails sent externally, especially in email marketing, are crafted much more thoughtfully than the messages we send each day to our coworkers. At Fathom, I’ve been told to send one email per topic, each with a self-explanatory subject line. This tip can create a larger volume of emails, but it certainly helps you send clear, concise messages.

Breton doesn’t state it specifically, but the thing he seems to dislike most about email is the time delay it builds into the communication process. Although lack of immediacy is what causes our inboxes to fill up, the time delay can also be considered email’s greatest strength. Email is extremely useful when you don’t feel like interrupting someone. And when you’re waiting for a response, you can temporarily escape the responsibility of dealing with the issue yourself.

In the end, what worries me about this ban on internal email is that Atos is an information technology company—and if anyone is going to initiate a huge shift in the way we communicate in the workplace, wouldn’t Atos be a logical candidate?

Although the benefits of using email are evident, I think it’s far more realistic to believe we’ll all adopt new internal communication systems before we ever learn to use email as efficiently as possible.

*Image provided by m-c on Flickr

Posted in Content Creation, Email Marketing, Usability | Tagged content, Email, Email Marketing, Usability

Cyber Monday is Not the E-commerce Holy Grail

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Matt Mesenger

According to comScore, the top 10 e-commerce spending days in 2010 and 2009 all occurred in November and December. With the holiday season in full swing during those months, that’s probably not a huge surprise.

What is surprising, though, is that Cyber Monday – generally perceived as THE day for online retailers – isn’t actually the biggest spending day of the year. In fact, in 2010, Cyber Monday wasn’t even in the top 10 spending days.

So, what does Cyber Monday’s “fall from grace” mean for online retailers?

Cyber Monday saw $947 million in sales. That’s a lot of money. The fact that at least 10 other days saw more money means, simply, that there is a lot of cash that consumers are willing to spend online during the holidays. Make sure you’re taking advantage with a marketing plan that caters to the entire season, not just Cyber Monday.
In 2010, six days hit the $1 billion mark. Time email campaigns, PPC campaigns, shipping speicals, and coupon / promo code deals around big spending days. The stats prove that more people are shopping and buying online during these days anyway, so capitalize on that and make sure they’re spending some of their money with you. On a side note, projections indicate that in 2011, the number of days that will hit the $1 billion mark will grow to nine.
The recent explosion in usage of mobile devices has also changed the Cyber Monday game. With the advent of couch commerce (yes, it’s happening), people can sprawl out on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner, watch the football game, and shop online via their tablet or smartphone. Note that Thanksgiving Day saw $355 million in sales last year, and expect that number to grow in 2011. Ultimately, the more shopping people get done from the couch after Thanksgiving dinner, the less shopping they’ll have left for Cyber Monday. So, if you don’t already, make sure you have a mobile-ready website for the holidays (and any other time of year, really).

The numbers speak volumes. The fact that Cyber Monday is no longer the e-commerce holy grail should not be in question. What should be in question, though, is this: Is your e-commerce website keeping up with the changing holiday-season demands of consumers? If not, you’re potentially missing out on a lot of sales and revenue.

NOTE: Data in the calendar is provided by the MasterCard SpendingPulse 2010 Actuals

Posted in E-commerce, Email Marketing, Mobile

Create Holiday Emails That’ll Knock Your Customers’ Socks Off

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Abigail Rossbach

You’re embracing the holiday shopping season. You’re ready to hit your customers with some really great deals, keep them in the loop about all your specials, and entice them to buy your products. And you’re going to use emails as one of the ways to do it.

How can you ensure your emails have the greatest impact when your customers open them? By providing the information people really want in a digestible, easy-to-access and thoroughly enjoyable way.

I recently read an article on the Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog called Holiday Email: A 12 Point List to Check Twice before You Hit Send This wonderful resource sparked some additional ideas for me and really served as the inspiration for this post.

As you’re crafting your holiday emails, keep the following tips in mind:

Create subject lines that pop. Want to get noticed among a sea of other inbox messages? Have a subject line that really catches your readers’ attention. Be sure to use their name and stay away from any generic “happy holidays” lines.
Calls to action are key. All your competitors are sending out promotional emails too (or at least they should be), so you need to make sure yours give clear direction and offer obvious value. In other words, tell your customers what you want them to do, and why they should do it. And don’t forget about prioritization. Having multiple CTAs is fine, but the one that directs your customer to take action on your site should be the most prominent. Nothing says “notice me!” quite like a big ol’ button.
Make it obvious why customers should choose you. There are tons of deals out there, and customers’ inboxes tend to get flooded around the holidays. Make your business stand out by offering a better deal than your competitors. Free shipping is pretty much a must, but think about other benefits you can provide as well. Member discounts, special clubs, rewards programs and money-back guarantees are all good places to start.
Showcase just how popular your products are. Use customer reviews, testimonials, social mentions and ratings to show how much existing customers like your products. These kinds of third-party endorsements are huge for online shoppers.
Images are great, but images with words are better. Showcasing your products is important, but be sure to include brief explanations to accompany the images. Tell people why these products are a great buy, and who on their list will love them.
Highlight holiday shipping policies and create a sense of urgency. Clearly explain your policy for shipping around the holidays. When it comes to giving gifts, people care about arrival times. Also, having a countdown displayed on every email that corresponds ordering dates with delivery dates is a great tactic to encourage quick buying.
Get your mobile site up and running. Think about how many people you see using Smartphones every day. Lots of them are checking their email, and they’d like to be able to go right from your message to your mobile site to make a purchase. Make sure it works effectively (and loads quickly!) on every type of device. You don’t want to contribute to the kind of customer raged that’s caused by slow mobile devices.
Always plan for last-minute buyers. There are more of them than you might think. And they love gift cards. Send an email right before the holidays targeted directly at these kinds of holiday shoppers.

Holiday emails are a great way to ignite customer interest, increase sales and boost your brand. Take advantage of everything these effective advertisements can do for you this season by following the eight easy tips above.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, I recommend downloading Aweber’s Email Marketing Christmas Lookbook. It’s a great resource full of awesome holiday emails that’ll really get your creative juices flowing.

*Image provided by Aweber’s Email Marketing Christmas Lookbook

Posted in Email Marketing, Online Marketing, Online PR | Tagged Email, Email Marketing, holiday email marketing, Online Marketing

Register For Our Holiday E-commerce Webinar and Get Results That Matter

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Matt Mesenger

On average, 98% of visits DO NOT result in a sale, and 75% users who actually add products to their shopping cart DO NOT buy anything. This is not encouraging for any etailer, especially as we enter the holiday season.

Fortunately, etailers don’t have to settle for “average.” While there are many reasons why industry averages are so poor, there are also many ways to improve a site’s revenue-generating potential this holiday season.

So, if you want to learn how to improve conversion rates, manage shopping cart abandonment, increase average order values, drive more ready-to-buy traffic, and more, make sure to register for Fathom’s free webinar today. Registrants will also receive our guide E-commerce Holiday Success: 107 Tips for Results That Matter.

Webinar: E-commerce Holiday Success: 107 Tips for Results that Matter

Registration Form: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/245121754

Date: 9/29/2011

Time: 1 PM – 2 PM EST

Posted in Conferences and Events, Conversion Optimization, E-commerce, Email Marketing, Fathom Company News, Internet Video Marketing, Mobile, Online Marketing, Paid Search, Search Engines, SEO, Social Media, Usability, Web Design | Tagged E-commerce, etailer, webinar

Healthcare Data-Crunching: Connecting IBM’s Watson to Email

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky

On Monday, health-benefits provider WellPoint announced that the IBM supercomputer most famous for beating two “Jeopardy!” champions earlier this year would start aiding doctors in diagnosing patients. Physicians would consult with Watson’s database in treating patients because it can “rapidly process information and provide the right answers,” according to Sam Nussbaum, chief medical officer of WellPoint.

What might be most exciting about this is how the technology can allow humans (in this case, doctors) to do their jobs better. If doctors get quicker access to the most up-to-date information, then they should be able to make informed decisions more quickly. This would then potentially give them more time to observe each individual patient or a larger total number of patients.

Watson for Opt-in Email Newsletters
A fascinating parallel lies in the realm of email databases. The same basic technology—predictive analytics—is used to sort large quantities of data for trends.

With proper tracking codes and sophisticated software, you can determine what segments of your email database respond to at any given stage in their relationship with you. Knowing these tendencies allows you to determine the right time to push for an engagement—or just to share information. It’s like having the power of Watson available for growing your own hospital, private practice, substance abuse center or mental health treatment facility.

Read more about how predictive analytics can help your healthcare institution or view Fathom’s Amy Marshall and Lindsey Grant presenting their popular webinar on healthcare and social media.

***

Photo courtesy of Steve Jurvetson via Flickr.

***

Download our latest healthcare white paper!
It doesn’t take a supercomputer to determine what healthcare consumer engagement you may be missing out on. Get facts and figures on how people use the Internet today for health-related activities and a whole lot more:
OMD! Is It Time To Call the Online Marketing Doctor?

Posted in Analytics, Big Data, Email Marketing, Healthcare, Predictive Analytics | Tagged IBM, Jeopardy, opt-in email, Watson, WellPoint

Hotmail Adopts HTML5 Video

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Phil Hoyt

Hotmail quietly released the implementation of HTML5 video capabilities into their email web client, making big news in the email and video marketing community last week. Hotmail is the first larger web- based email client to offer support for HTML5 video email, beating out Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and others.

An email campaign can now strategically display HTML5-ready messages to those on your mailing list with HTML5-capable email services. The impact of this integration is huge, as the Hotmail web mail client displays HTML5 video in Chrome, Firefox, and IE9. IE8, which does not support HTML5, still can only show an animated GIF video.

Below is our Email Campaign Service testing HTML5 in Hotmail. Surprisingly, this player also works in a few other clients, such as Outlook 2011 for Mac. Hopefully, this is the start of what will become a large adoption of some form of video into email!

Posted in Email Marketing, Internet Video Marketing, Usability | Tagged Email, Email Marketing, hotmail video, hotmail video html5, html5, html5 video, html5 video hotmail, video in email

E-Commerce Email Essentials

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Tim Roman

As I’m sitting here preparing for the Internet Retailer conference in San Diego this week I’m going over some of the successes we’ve had producing email campaigns for e-commerce clients. Each client has a unique situation and came to us with a different email marketing background. Some of them didn’t even have any email campaigns prior to working with us.

What’s interesting is that while each client has unique needs, there are several strategies and tactics that are essential regardless of the desired outcome.

1. Subscriber Acquisition

Ask anyone who wants to do email marketing (aside from well-known brands) and they will probably tell you that acquisition is one of the most difficult parts of producing a quality campaign. Fortunately for e-commerce companies, anyone who purchases from them or visits their site in search of a good deal can easily be converted into a subscriber.

While many sites collect email addresses, and even double opt them in, I’ve found that a good portion of them still lack an official acquisition strategy. They may be collecting “enough” addresses but might not be collecting as many as they could. It’s easy to test different sign-up box placements, sizes and colors. It’s also easy to create contests, coupon codes and other incentives for people to subscribe.

2. Initial Engagement

After you have successfully captured an email address you need to immediately get the relationship with your new subscriber started. Don’t wait hours, days or months to contact them for the first time. Send them an email immediately! Send them something special and unique and don’t be afraid to ask them to whitelist your sending address.

With inbox engagement becoming an increasingly important factor in message delivery, senders need to strike while the iron is hot and increase inbox actions while they are fresh in the mind of their subscribers.

3. Content

I really get tired of receiving email campaigns with nothing but the same coupon code time and time again. Or with a new sorta-deal, or free shipping, or a third-party advertisement.

Producing quality content on a regular basis is difficult. It takes time and money to do, but for most e-commerce companies, it’s worth the additional expense. Even if you’re on a budget, there are options available for youincluding freelance writers, repurposing blog content or even highlighting product reviews. Get creative and think of new ways to get new content into your subscriber’s inbox.

Posted in Email Marketing | Tagged E-commerce