February 19, 2009
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One B2B Newsletter that I regularly read is sent by Wells Fargo. They consistently provide useful content for small businesses in their monthly “Small Business Roundup” campaigns. This can come as a breath of fresh air when many B2B email marketers are sending newsletters with watered down content. Communication with your subscribers should always be meaningful and provide them something of value.
This is not what I wanted to point out though with this post. In the February newsletter from Wells Fargo, I noticed a very nice touch at the end of the content. They had a “Next Month” section that previewed content for the upcoming issue. This is a great tactic as it A: sets expectations for what you will receive, and B: has the opportunity to get you excited and patiently wait an upcoming issue.
If you can successfully get your subscribers looking forward to your next email — and eager to open it up — you have accomplished something very powerful.
February 15, 2009
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Companies often ask how to take their email segmentation to the next level. This is a great question, as segmentation strategy is one of the most important (of many important) elements for a successful email program.
The answer to this question depends on the particular industry, the customers, company goals, available resources, etc etc. During an uncovery phase of a strategic email planning process, key questions are answered to help guide us towards better segmentation.
Two Important Questions:
1. Is it Meaningful: We may have the best technology in the world and the ability to drill down a customer segment. At the end of the day though, does this segment make sense for our product/service and what we’re trying to accomplish with our email marketing program? Is the result of this segment a meaningful communication for the subscriber?
2. Is the Data Available: You may want to implement a strategy where you break customers down by their geographic location, gender, and whether or not they have purchased Product X in the previous 6 months. Great! This may be a fantastic segment to target, but if all we have available to us is the subscribers first name, email address, and date of last order, it will be pretty tricky to execute this query. The better question may be: what data do we have available? This then opens up doors for exploring more intricate (and appropriate) email segments.
In future posts I will be going into much more detail on tips and advanced strategies for implementing some of these segments.
Below is a starter list of 15 ideas for what to segment
- Subscribers who have signed up within a given date range
- Email activity (open vs. did not opened; clicked through vs. did not click through)
- Specific click activity (did they click on link x, or product category A)
- Email engagement history (subscribers who have not opened an email (or done another defined action) in x months).
- Active subscribers (continuing from the last point – subscribers that have opened X+ messages in the previous X months)
- Post email engagement (did they click through and reach a goal page on the website? Abandon a cart? etc.
- Date range of last order placed
- Product groups purchased from
- Customer value
- Average ticket price
- Interest groups
- Subscribers in a specific state, county, zip code
- Birthdays in a particular month
- Subscriber demographics such as: age, gender, education levels,marital status etc.
- Acquisition channel
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, segmentation strategy is very important for email marketing. Stay tuned for more detailed posts with best practices and advanced tips for creating your segments.
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February 13, 2009
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In a previous post, I spoke about the great design architecture jeweler Blue Nile had implemented with their email creative. Today I received a follow up email for the valentine’s day promotion that had fantastic use of blocked images.
In my post titled: Ugly View for Victoria’s Secret, I commented how the retailer was missing the mark and implementing poor strategy with their email design, given that images are blocked for many subscribers by default. It was a pleasant discovery today with Blue Nile’s email, where with my images blocked I still saw the full promotion and call to action. I didn’t need to enable images to understand what they were offering and how I could take advantage of the offer. They had their primary copy in text (win #1), and they had their image follow up with the same copy as the alternative text (win #2). They even had proper alt-text implemented for their navigation. Pretty much every element of their ‘full image view’ was visible and relatively clean with the default blocked images.
Note though that this is not rocket science. I wouldn’t even categorize this as ‘advanced email marketing strategy’. With that said, many MANY email marketers completely miss the mark here. Not just the newbies or the small shops – but huge global brands. For today though, thumbs up to Blue Nile.
Below is a screen grab of their recent email with the default images blocked.
Below is a screen grab of the full image view of the same email:
February 12, 2009
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In light of this email from Victoria’s Secret, I am planning to write a post later this month with some pointers on dealing with blocked images.
I’ll hold my comments for later, but below is a bold contrast of what a subscriber sees with images blocked, vs. the full image view.
Vs. the full image view below….
Unfortunately, our sexy imagery, high priced models, and carefully crafted design work is never seen by our subscribers. This raises another question I will address in a future post: Is your goal to impress with pretty imagery, or to convert subscribers?
- Forest Bronzan
