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Archive for the ‘List Building/Opt-In’ Category

Cool Seasonal Opt-In from Dell

December 7th, 2009

While shopping for some new computer equipment, I came across Dell’s “Days of Deals“ promotion. Basically, 8 days of special discounts, with new products being featured each day. Some cool items, but what impressed me more was the email sign-up process they had. Starting with a simple call out to be reminded of the new deals each day.

The next page had a great preference section that was obviously specific to this particular promotion. I was able to indicate if I wanted reminders for Laptops, Desktops, Monitors, etc. You’ll see in the screen grab below that they have large visuals for each of the options which is a nice touch. Not only is it more usable, but seeing the products makes a user more likely to want to receive updates on them — tech “eye candy” if you will.

They offer an opt-in check box to subscribe to additional offers and also allow you to subscribe to mobile reminders. On the confirmation page though, Dell had a really cool move of providing links to “Shop Now” for the categories I selected to receive updates on. Sounds like common sense, however many retailers take you to a general thank-you page and you have to navigate your way to certain products. Dell does a nice job here of making it easy for the user to get where they likely want to go and retain visitors while they are in the buying mindset.

Great opt-in process from Dell here. They stay consistent with their brand and usability of their site, offer a reason to opt-in to their list, provide user preference options so they can further segment and provide more sophisticated dynamic content, and they integrate the process with other site goals. One quick area of improvement would be on the first page where you click “Need a Reminder…” and then go to the opt-in page. I would recommend having a quick sign-up here (have a field to enter your email address) accompanied by a button reading: “Click to subscribe and select product preferences” — or something to that effect. By doing this they likely increase their opt-in conversion rate by acquiring more sign-ups from the main page and drawing additional attention to the fact that there is an email sign-up option.

The next post will focus on the reminder emails deployed during their campaign.

Cheers,

Forest

Questions or thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, Dynamic Content, List Building/Opt-In, Personalization, Promotions, Retail Email, Segmentation

Trader Joe’s – Store Signage for Email

October 15th, 2009

Shopping the other day at my local Trader Joe’s store, I was delighted to see a large sign on my way out informing shoppers of the TJ Email Newsletter!

I love how they are trying to encourage opt-in at the store locations with this signage. They also give a sneak peak at content to expect (New Items, Grand Openings, Recipes), which is a good move.

Below are a few suggested improvements

1. Drop Box: Why not have a drop box attached so people can leave their business card or have a pen and paper to leave their email address? Yes, this would create more work for someone to manually enter info, and there could be some errors in transcription, but you could still send a confirmation email requiring action to subscribe. By just having the signage you are relying on people to actually go to the site and sign up.

2. Sign-up at Checkout: Better yet, why not have store personnel ask if you would like to join the email list while you are paying for your groceries? The technology is there to integrate, and a patron could have a nice welcome email by the time they get home!

3. Incentive: Recipes and new items are cool, but offering something nice to encourage people to sign up is a good idea. List building is difficult business and many are reluctant to join new lists. But if I get 15% off my next grocery purchase, entered in a chance to win a big prize, or a plethora of other ideas, I’m much more interested to get on board.

4. Follow Through: When going to the site, it wasn’t super easy to find the sign-up. On the flash site I couldn’t find it on first run-through, and on the HTML site I believe it was only apparent as a text link in their main copy. If you are not going to get the sign-up at the actual store (highly recommended) then make sure it’s quick and easy to do so on the site. — that should go without saying…

Thoughts or questions? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

Cheers,

Forest

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, List Building/Opt-In, Retail Email

Quicken Loans – Part 1: Email Sign-Up

August 19th, 2009

Taking a look at QuickenLoans.com I will be doing a two part series on their email opt-in process and a particular delivery.

To kick things off, let’s look at some elements of their online sign-up. There are a lot of email opportunities for Quicken Loans. For first time buyers in particular, a great deal of education is desired to help them guide through the process. Even for seasoned borrowers, there are opportunities for education, rate announcement, market news and more (not to mention cross-sell opportunities for other products in the Quicken family). As many home buyers are shopping around, email is critical to keep the brand top-of-mind and help nurture the sale.

When going to sign-up for their email list, a few good things were going on but there were also some areas of improvement:

1. Where to Sign Up? On the home page there was no clear option to sign-up. You have to click on About Us and then Email Alerts. This is a key area of improvement: make it easy to sign up! Steve Krug notes says this well in his book title: Don’t Make Me Think. It’s inevitable that there are some lost opportunities here.

2. Sign Up Page: (1st screen grab below). Some nice things here. First, it’s very user-friendly w/ email address and two preference options. The Rate Alert was a very cool feature! You can select your desired rate to receive notification when it is available. I was excited to see this in action. While there could have been a few more preference options or opportunities to collect data for further personalization, it was a decent sign-up page.

3. Thank You Page: (2nd screen grab below).

A. Starting off with the good: I like how they have 5 links for “Looking for info Right Now?” — Direct users to helpful information and keep them active on the site. Nice job.

B. One piece of copy though that threw me off: “…you’ll receive your requested emails as soon as we write them” – To me that sounds a bit lazy and uncertain. On the sign-up page I thought I was signing up for the monthly newsletter and rate alerts. So wouldn’t it be more relevant to say something like: “…you’ll receive your information packed newsletter each month and rate alerts as soon as they become available!”

C. Finally, there was no confirmation email — or welcome email. I’m not 100% sure I was added to the list, and I’m waiting for a welcome email! This welcome message is a great opportunity as open rates will be sky-high and you can kick the relationship off on a positive note.

Sign Up Page – Click to Enlarge

Thank You Page – Click to Enlarge

While they are off to a decent start, there are several areas of improvement that will quickly improve the QuickenLoans sign-up process. In Part 2 we’ll discuss the first email received.

Cheers,

Forest

Questions or inputs? Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, List Building/Opt-In, Welcome Emails

Wynn Drops the Ball with Email

June 23rd, 2009

In a previous post, I pointed out how jeweler Shane Co. was making a mistake by not having an email sign-up on their website. I even connected with their online chat representative and they were unable to add me to a list. (Update: I noticed today that they now have a quick sign-up on their home page in the upper right. Better late than never.)

My experience with the Wynn Las Vegas email list has been even more frustrating. To establish some context; I love the Wynn. It’s probably my favorite hotel in Vegas and I have stayed there on numerous occasions. Every time I have had exceptional service and a fantastic trip. I’m definitely a promoter. On the gaming side, I’m a fairly serious poker player. I have played in the Wynn Poker Classic, a WSOP event and the like.

In summary: I like the Wynn, have been a loyal customer, and WANT TO BE ON THEIR EMAIL LIST. I’m an absolutely perfect subscriber.

The only problem is I can’t sign up for their list. I was on a transactional list many years ago when I stayed there for the first time, but that address is long gone.

Here are the steps I’ve taken to opt-in

1. Website: My first action is to just visit the Wynn site and expect to see a quick sign-up on the home page. Nothing.

2. Reply-To Address: A friend of mine is on their list and forwarded me an email (that actually had several flaws). I emailed them and requested to join the list, but received an auto-reply explaining the address was not functioning.

My Next Steps

1. Phone: I will try calling guest services to get on the list. I shouldn’t have to do this.

This quest should have never started (they should already have me in there), but should have definitely stopped at the first step. I expect to see an email sign-up when I visit the website; combined with a nice preference center, well planned welcome letter, and integration with other channels.

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email.

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, Email Marketing Strategy, List Building/Opt-In, Red Flag Mistakes

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