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Archive for the ‘Red Flag Mistakes’ Category

Blemishes from SkinStore.com

December 17th, 2009

Every now and then an email comes in with some blatant flaws. While not nearly as bad as the royal screw up from UC San Diego last April, SkinStore.com recently made the Red Flag Mistakes section of this blog.

The Problem: They had a technical error in their deployment where the titles of the their dynamic rules displayed in place of the actual content. Starting with the Subject Line: %%CONTENT1%% — which of course should have been calling whatever content they had in ‘content1′

The issue continued to the entire email with pretty much all dynamic sections (images, content etc) displaying the rule code.

On a good note, they had solid intentions of providing some personalized content via a dynamic approach. When executed properly, this can add significant value to your email efforts. Unfortunately there were some technical slip-ups here that resulted in poor presentation. Additionally, no follow up email was sent (at least I didn’t receive one). If the issue was detected, and corrected, re-sending with the functioning version could have helped a great deal.

We all make mistakes and have stories of technical frustrations. This email here may be a good opportunity for Skin Store to review their testing process, email platform, and deployment procedures in order to make improvements to their program.

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, Dynamic Content, Personalization, Red Flag Mistakes

Lazy Email Execution from Trader Joes

November 18th, 2009

In a post from last month, we discussed the Trader Joe’s email opt-in process via their in-store signage. The healthy food store was promoting their email newsletter on location, but did not make it easy to sign up.

After finally getting on board I eventually received the first newsletter piece. “Trader Joe’s roasting…a turkey” — this subject line could use some improvement, but that is the least of their concerns.

Below is the turkey newsletter:

I think this needs a major overhaul. For starters:

1. Where is the useful navigation?

2. How about a link to the website (other than the PDF for the ‘Turkey Roasting Game Plan’)

3. Color: Outside of the turkey and corn, maybe something more than black and white.

4. Design: A design overhaul that is consistent with the TJ’s brand would help a great deal.

5. Architecture: Before overhauling design, develop a cohesive and usable architecture for the email. Here is an example of Blue Nile doing well with this.

6. How about bringing it full circle and having some local store mentions?

The list goes on…

While Trader Joe’s is a ‘down to earth’ brand, and probably promotes a minimalist approach with their email communications, there is no reason they can’t find equilibrium with email best-practices and simplistic presentation. I hold larger companies to a much higher standard when reviewing emails. With Trader Joe’s bringing in $7.2 billion in 2008 should be producing better work.

Don’t get me wrong — there is a place for ultra simple and pretty much designless emails. I’ve seen much higher engagement with a simple-text personal letter format — under the right conditions. Trader Joe’s may have been better off with that approach here: “Forest, with Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought you would enjoy some tips for preparing your turkey….. ” etc. But they chose a different approach and did not make the appropriate adjustments.

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, Design, Red Flag Mistakes

24 Hour Fitness vs. LA Fitness

October 1st, 2009

Back in June, I discussed how 24h Fitness was starting to make a comeback with their email efforts after dropping the ball when email was needed the most. Well they have been right now top of it every since, but with inconsistent promotions.

I seem to get some email promotions for a $9.99 Initiation Fee + $29.99/month, and then different weeks I’ll get an email for a $0 Initiation Fee + $29.99/month. All with the same subject line: “Membership Special”

But it was a bit too late as I recently signed a longer term commitment with LA Fitness (the nicer of the gyms in my particular area). The problem with the LA Fitness email program is they don’t have one — at least they didn’t ask for my email at all during my registration process for my 3 year membership. Perhaps they are thinking that the sale is already closed. If so, their email department needs a wake-up call. There are many relevant email communications such as class update/schedules, fitness tips, up-sell/cross-sell opportunities, refer-a-friend promotions and more!

Before rushing to judgment though, I will investigate further to see if there is in fact a members email list (or any email list for that matter). It could have just been a slip-up not asking me to sign up.

Stay tuned…

Forest

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Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2C, Promotions, Red Flag Mistakes

Casino Morongo – Mistakes with Email

August 11th, 2009

It seems as of late that several casinos are making some decent sized mistakes with their email initiatives. Don’t these companies have big marketing engines? It’s clear that the email department is not getting the attention it deserves.

Changing gears and looking at a smaller (compared to Vegas) casino, I joined the mailing list for Inland Empire based Morongo Casino and Resort. I believe it’s one of the largest in the area and I do see quite a lot of local advertising.

The recent email I received has some clear areas of improvement

1. It’s one big image: We’ve discussed this several times before, but pay attention to your text to image ratio and don’t create a single image for your entire email.

2. I’m not in this segment: Why am I getting a ’seniors special’ promotion? This is because they are either sending a big shot-gun email and not implementing a rifle or blowdart approach, or they don’t have that data available for me. If we give them the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter, then it can be a good idea to send an email to subscribers that you don’t have a lot of data for and invite them to complete their profile (I’ll do a post soon just on this topic).

3. Design: It’s simply not A-grade work, or even B-grade work for that matter.

4. Navigation: It needs to be at the top. We’ve discussed the benefits of having navigation in your email in previous posts. They did have a navigation bar at the bottom (screen grab below) but that doesn’t do much good for subscribers that don’t scroll below the fold.

This email doesn’t need any more analysis as items mentioned above need to be flushed out first. Casino Morongo, along with many other casinos and card rooms, have a great opportunity to create meaningful segments and leverage the email channel to increase their customer relationship and engagement. I’m on a search now for some casinos that are implement solid email strategies.