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Archive for the ‘Personalization’ Category

eHarmony Gets the Basics of Preference Management

February 21st, 2009

In my last post I discussed some concepts of email preference centers. When we let our subscribers tell us what they want, and when & how they want it, we are able to provide email communication that is much more timely and relevant — and makes our subscribers happier!

eHarmony has done a good job at getting some basics down for their preference center, with some definite room for improvement. This element doesn’t quite make it into my Red Flag Mistakes category, as this has been executed fairly well.

Below you will see a screen grab of their simple preference center. Here they are asking about my preferences on specific sends they have: Special Offers, Newsletter, New Products, and Partner Offers.

eharmoney-email-preferences1

This is a nice start. What I would also like to see is more options for frequency, device, and format. eHarmony is a big player and has the resources to offer such options. Additionally, a separate section with options for more specific content would be very nice. Here they could funnel down subscribers that were looking for ‘relationship advice’ ‘date ideas’ ‘geographic getaway spots’ etc etc.

With that said, I would hope eHarmony is using other data they have available when sending dynamic content. A previous post on the basics of email segmentation, provided a starter list of ideas on what to segment. eHarmony should have many data points available to create some extremely targeted groups.

-Forest Bronzan

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, Personalization, Segmentation

Email Preference Centers – Let the User Decide

February 20th, 2009

One of the last elements I see email marketers focus on is developing a user preference center. Here, we allow the subscriber to give us info about what they want. Big picture; if a subscriber can tell us what they want, when they want it, and how they want it — we are on the road to having a much happier list of recipients. Preference management is important, and as the commercial email world gets more flooded, subscribers have more brands trying to get their attention, and people’s lives get busier – allowing your recipients to change their preferences will become increasingly important.

Aside from making our subscribers happier, having preference data is extremely helpful for marketers. It allows us to provide timely, relevant, and personalized communications to our lists. If we know a subscriber wants emails only 1 time per month, we have our frequency question answered. If we know our subscriber is interested in tips for grooming dogs vs. tips for making home-made dog food; we can provide much more targeted content. You get the point.

When building your preference center, there are of course several options you can give your subscribers. Here are a few ideas:

1. Unsubscribe

2. Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly etc. (depending on what content you are providing)

3. Device: phone/computer

4. Desired Format: html vs. plain text

5. Content: make options available for the different categories of content you offer.

6. Personalization Updates: if you don’t already have the data, you can ask for Name, Birthday, Zip Code, and info that is relevant for your company. A previous post on segmentation provides some other ideas.

The options you provide need to make sense for your business, products, and subscribers. An important note: don’t offer options that you can’t follow through with. For example: if you don’t have the resources to provide a different format for mobile devices, don’t make that option available to your subscriber. Same goes for frequency and other preference options.

- Forest Bronzan

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Posted in B2B, B2C, Email Marketing Strategy, Frequency, Personalization, Retail Email

Geo-Segmentation With Quiznos

January 4th, 2009

I recently saw an email from Quiznos, and while it had some flaws I won’t address in this post, it did a nice job with geo-segmentation to provide me relevant content.

Notice here we have “Visit These Quiznos Locations Near You“ – They obviously have my zip code and dynamically inserted 3 locations that were in my area. This has the obvious benefit of making this email more personalized and relevant, and at the same time making me aware of a location that I previously did not know existed.

To accompany the location targeting, they provided a clear call-out for coupons “valid at these locations”.

In Summary

1. This email segmented me by zip code to provide targeted location recommendations

2. Utilized dynamic content so they could execute this creative to a large list while providing personalized content

3. Provided a call to action that integrated with this personalization

-Forest Bronzan

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2B, B2C, Dynamic Content, Personalization, Segmentation

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