Author Archive
Breaking Email Out of the DM Ghetto
I had the honor of speaking at two big annual email marketing events in the past 2 weeks: First, at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas, and then again earlier this week at the DMA’s annual Email Evolution Conference in Miami, Florida. Both of the panels I sat on focused on digital marketing integration best practices, with the former squarely focused on email-social media integration.
One concept that I was happy to get the chance to touch on was the need for email marketers to break out of the “direct response ghetto.” I argued that practitioners’ “buy now, buy now” mentality hampers the entire industry’s ability to capture the imagination of the C-suite.
CEOs love spending billions of dollars on Superbowl ads because they are fun, creative, and downright sexy. On the other hand, a never-ending series of “20% off if you buy now” coupons jammed into peoples’ inboxes is far from inspiring.
Like I told attendees at both events–social media is the salvation of email marketing. Here’s why:
- The people on the hook for social media marketing success are often the same people responsible for email marketing success (as was the case at Sherpa with my co-panelists from Threadless and Freshpair);
- Marketers get props for growing their social media presence regardless of whether they can quantify any hard sales from the channel. With social media, the C-suite gets that there is intrinsic value in having a large audience of identifiable individuals to communicate with;
- We can easily make the case to transfer that currency to email lists… We can and should rightfully argue that having a large list of email subscribers has just as much intrinsic value in and of itself, regardless of whether people buy in direct response to email marketing messages or engage with marketers’ brands in other ways (e.g., advocate brands to their friends and families)… And finally;
- Social media is “humanizing” email marketers… it is teaching marketers how to incorporate personas into their brands, and infuse all their messaging–email included–with personality and charisma. The email marketing leaders of tomorrow are using email to drive engagement with, and conversations about, their brands–not just immediate sales–and the only way to do that is to get creative, to be inspiring, and to give recipients something fun to do…
Once we capture the imaginations of the masses through email, capturing the C-suite’s will quickly follow. So forget everything you thought you knew… Leave the calculator at home… And for crying out loud stop analyzing everything to death… Tear down the walls that are holding you back and inject Superbowl-level thinking into your email marketing program.
Jordan Cohen
VP, Business Development
Pontiflex
Silicon Valley, Meet Silicon Alley
It isn’t always easy pulling us Pontiflexers away from our comfortable surroundings in DUMBO, Brooklyn, but every now and then there is something going on far, far away that we simply can’t miss. San Bruno, California-based Responsys‘s annual client summit, Interact 2011, certainly fits the bill.
Taking place at San Francisco’s Marriott Marquis Feb 15 – 17, Responsys has organized a truly world class event, with a speaker line-up that includes Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes, Bonin Bough, global director of digital and social media for PepsiCo, Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of reddit.com and Shar Van Boskirk, Forrester Research’s veteran interactive marketing analyst. If that’s not impressive enough, Responsys also will be hosting a private concert featuring the one and only Cyndi Lauper!
Our partnership with Responsys demonstrates how great things happen when the best minds in Silicon Valley and New York’s re-energized Silicon Alley tech start-up scenes join forces. By integrating Pontiflex’s industry leading user acquisition platform with Responsys’s best-in-class email email marketing technology, marketers are able to maximize the effectiveness of both.
We hope you’ll visit our exhibit at next month’s event to learn more. Responsys has graciously extended a special $200 discount on conference registration for clients and friends of Pontiflex. Email Jordan – at – Pontiflex.com to request your private registration code. See you in San Francisco!
Communicating to your Subscribers, Fans, and Followers
We were delighted to host an event last night with our partner ExactTarget here in NYC in conjunction with ad:Tech NY. Held at the exclusive Blue Fin restaurant in Times Square, about 100 marketers, agencies and industry influencers mingled over top shelf cocktails, sushi, heavy apps, and, of course “fresh M&Ms”.
There was also a brief panel discussion that took place around the theme of “Communicating to your Subscribers, Fans, and Followers.” As always, we came prepared. I’m not sure how far I strayed from my original notes, but, for what it’s worth, here they are…
Part 1: Introducing the Topic: Communicating to your Subscribers, Fans, and Followers
- The topic of today’s panel really encapsulates a major theme that we’ve been talking about here at Pontiflex, which is that in today’s age of extreme media fragmentation and corresponding digital ADD, marketers need to adopt a ubiquity strategy and be where their customers are – relevantly.
- Email, Facebook and Twitter – not to mention mobile apps, SMS, BBM, IM, eReaders, tablet computers, television, radio, good old fashioned newspapers, etc etc are turning us into what industry analyst David Daniels calls a “Short Burst Society” – Marketers need to cut through the clutter and Burst through the noise in order to be relevant.
Part 2: How do you attain your subscribers, fans and followers?
- Marketers can’t afford to be complacent–they need to put signing up for their email lists FRONT AND CENTER, where their customers are, when they are there, and when they are in a moment of engagement. Here are a few examples:
- Scott’s lawn care puts “text to opt in” instructions on billboards at baseball games.
- Southwest Airlines does the same thing – on their in-flight cocktail napkins! (Check out this interesting post from DJ Waldow at Blue Sky Factory on how they do it).
- Tommy Hilfiger uses Pontiflex to run sign up ads on relevant publisher web sites and mobile apps to get people to opt in to hear about new fashion lines and events
- The ASPCA runs display banners that allow consumers to sign up directly inside the banner without ever leaving the site
- Marketers must always prioritize privacy when communicating with customers — both new and old.
- You wouldn’t want someone reading your name badge at a conference networking event without knowing and then using it to start emailing you. You’d rather that they came up to you and asked your permission to keep in touch. Ask me, don’t just start following me!
Part 3: How do you build the relationship and retain your subscribers, fans and followers?
- Just like first impressions in the real world, your welcome email and emails (plural) are key. If the first few meetings don’t go well, the relationship probably isn’t going to go very far. If they do go well, then you’re in business – at least in the short term, and – if you play your cards right – for a lifetime.
- Develop a thoughtful on-boarding strategy. Don’t just say “thanks for joining our list” and commence sending regular offers.
- Special introductory discounts and offers will make new customers feel valued.
- Start building social communities from the very first email.
- ASPCA includes links to “participate in the cause” on Twitter and Facebook and grew its presence on these sites 20-fold in one year, with email playing a large role.
- HUGGIES offered expecting mom’s a due-date widget
- Heinz put a link to a community site for its SmartOnes diet brand where people can share their weight loss stories
- The most important thing is to BE RELEVANT – if you have no interest and football and a person starts talking to you every morning about football, you’re going to tune that person out. Marketers need to continue moving away from broadcasting and to relevant, personal messaging – constantly listen to your customer and respond!
Special thanks to the ExactTarget team for organizing such a great event and including Pontiflex as a co-host. In particular, we’d like to give a shout out to Andy Clark, Kristen Neal, Lindsay Niemiec and panel moderator Rob Wiley — you guys rock!
AppLeads – Bursting Through the “Short Burst Society”
David Daniels, founder and CEO of The Relevancy Group has been called “one of the most influential experts in e-mail marketing, if not the most influential.” Needless to say, with creds like David’s, we are extremely proud to have received such a positive review of our new AppLeads technology on his blog yesterday.
Some especially nice tidbits from the post, titled “New Approaches to Subscriber Acquisition, Achievements That We Can’t Do Without”:
- “The smallscreen “smart” app based device will quickly become the fuel of our “Short Burst Society.”
- “Given my love of that notion that this “Short Burst Society” will guide what we as consumers deem as relevant, I am thrilled to see Pontiflex deliver a publisher and advertiser APP based email subscription network that lives within the application registration process.”
- “[Pontiflex's AppLeads] API/SDK allows their code to be infused in pane or landscape mode (think of apps that don’t work in landscape mode and your frustration when they don’t), so they are keen on the user experience. I dig that.”
David has been talking a lot lately about the “Short Burst Society.” “We’re now living in what I refer to as the ‘Short Burst Society’ in which consumers are time-starved with a shrinking attention span,” he said. “Even when pushing relevant messages, marketers still have a shorter opportunity to capture the consumer’s attention and drive corporate value.”
He’s right. And we’re thrilled that David agrees that AppLeads is a solution that bursts through the noise in today’s competitive and cluttered landscape.
Acquire New Customers With Discounts this Holiday Season
Photo Credit: garethjimsaunders (flickr)
There’s an article in the Wall Street Journal today predicting that “Retailers’ Holiday Hinges on Discounts.” In a soft economy, the article tracks several high profile retailers who are using discounts to lure in shoppers and beat the competition heading into the all-important holiday selling season.
Bill Simon, CEO of Wal-mart, says that “We expect a very, very competitive and aggressive Christmas and holiday selling season, price-focused.” Matthew Shay, president of the NRF echoes “Consumers continue to be reactive to price, and there are many retailers out there that are competing on price.”
Here’s some food for thought on how email marketers can “ride the wave”:
- Offer special savings to entice consumers to opt-in. Make the most of this opportunity to grow your email database at a time when people are getting ready to buy gifts for their friends, families and co-workers. Get your call-to-action on front of consumers in as many places as you can: ” Sign up now for our email updates and instantly get X% off your next purchase!”
- After your new customer signs up, send a real-time confirmation email with a unique coupon and/or redemption code in it. And give him or her enough time to redeem it online or off-.
- Include and promote social sharing. Give your new subscriber the ability to post your special opt-in offer on their Facebook page or a unique URL to post to their Twitter account that they can use to promote your offer to their friends, fans and followers.
It may only be October 6th, but December 25th is right around the corner. Now is the time to get your email program in gear to achieve maximum results this holiday season.
Top 5 List Growth Dos and Don’ts
I want to thank our friends at Bronto Software for inviting me to contribute a guest post to their blog today. Titled “Top 5 List Growth Dos and Don’ts,” the post outlines the most important things that email marketers should keep in mind when it comes to acquiring new subscribers — from basic tips like how to get permission, to more advanced recommendations related to how emerging mobile technologies and social networks can be utilized in a proactive list growth strategy.
As I mention at the conclusion of the post, “your email list is only as good as the company it keeps” — and the same applies to partners. While Pontiflex’s technology is used to build and deploy best-in-class email and social acquisition programs, our tight integration with top email service providers like Bronto helps marketers take things to the next level with highly relevant and targeted follow up messaging across multiple channels. Check them out!
Pontiflex @ ExactTarget Connections ’10
More than 2000 marketers descended on Indianapolis this week for ExactTarget‘s annual conference, Connections ’10. As ExactTarget’s integrated partner for email and social acquisition, Pontiflex was proud to sponsor and exhibit at the show for the first time.
Some highlights from the event:
- Keynote by Sir Richard Branson, the legendary entrepreneur behind the Virgin Group, whose infectious energy and tall-tales of risk, reward and commercial space travel dazzled the crowd.
- ExactTarget COO Scott McCorkle unveiling ExactTarget’s slick new Interactive Marketing Hub, which provides marketers with a single dashboard view of what’s happening with their brands across email, mobile, social, and web channels. Really cool “next gen” stuff.
- Wonderful networking and events at Indiana State Museum and a private concert for all attendees featuring Train!
Thanks to everyone who visited our booth and met with us during the show. And extra special thanks to our friends on the ExactTarget partnership team (Scott Roth, Andy Clark and Jason Meketa) for their kind hospitality. We’re already starting the countdown to Connections ’11!
Here’s a photo of us at our booth. We are all smiling – which is not surprising given what a great event it was.
(From left to right: Jarett Lewis, Director of National Sales; Chris Halvorsen, VP of Sales; Jordan Cohen, VP of Business Development; Jim White, Director of National Sales.)
The Cost of Mailing to Inactive Subscribers
Our friends at deliverability firm ReturnPath released an interesting research report earlier this week examining how major retailers deal with inactive/disengaged segments of their lists.
Nineteen month ago, ReturnPath made purchases on the sites of 40 leading retailers and then ignored every email message they received subsequent to those purchases. Key findings:
- Most email marketers continued to send email at a steady, high frequency for the entire 19-month study period, despite a total lack of response from the subscriber (no opens, no clicks, no purchases).
- Only 27% of the sample (11 companies) eventually did stop mailing to inactives. 2 companies did after one month; 5 stopped after 5 – 10 months; and the remaining 4 stopped after 14-19 months.
- Marketers waste substantial sums of money mailing to inactives. Based on the typical fees that ESPs charge marketers to deploy their email, ReturnPath estimates that a marketer with a housefile of 1 million names will waste $288,000 per year sending email to the 60% of its list that’s inactive.
Stephanie Colleton, Director of Professional Services for Return Path said: “We strongly recommend that email marketers, not just e-retailers, monitor their subscriber responses – opens, click-throughs and conversions – and adapt their campaigns to either slow down the emails to once per month or send a re-permission email to determine subscribers’ continued interest in receiving emails.”
The report further cautions that relentless mailing to inactives endangers overall email deliverability. “When non-responsive subscribers receive a steady stream of emails, or in some cases an increased frequency of emails, they will often begin reporting those emails as spam driving up the marketer’s complaint rate.”
The main takeaway is clear: Either find a way to re-engage inactive subscribers or stop mailing to them altogether. It’s better to focus on the active segment of your list and work to continually add fresh, engaged new names to marketing lists to compensate for the loss of names that have been removed.
The full report is available for download from ReturnPath’s web site — click here to request your free copy.
Pinchy Would’ve Wanted it This Way
We’ve gotten a brand new handmade dining table at Pontiflex. To give it a proper welcome, it’s lobster roll day here at Pontiflex. Awesome for us; not so awesome for the 30+ succulent crustaceans smothered in mayo and chives delivered to our office today from Brooklyn’s famous Red Hook Lobster Pound.
Focus on Quality When it Comes to List Growth
Kara Trivunovic from Strongmail penned a new article for Mediapost last week, provocatively titled “Does Size Really Matter?” (Her answer — yes, it does).
Kara rightfully cautions that in the quest for list growth, marketers shouldn’t forgo quality in the name of quantity: “If you are just adding people for the sake of hitting a number, the rest of your metrics will suffer, I promise.”
Her advice is solid:
- Set goals for growth. Kara says marketers should come up with realistic objectives that “align with the addition of quality subscribers who want to engage with your content and your brand and will have a positive impact on your other performance metrics.” The goal should be to add new subscribers to your list who are as likely or even more likely to open, click and respond to your emails than your previous and current subscribers.
- Identify where your customers are most likely to sign up. Kara suggests auditing how one’s subscribers prefer to sign up, including whether offline channels are optimized for “natural email acquisition” and whether a company’s social presence is helping to attract new customers.
- Deliver value. List attrition can be a prime indication that your content is becoming irrelevant and needs a refresh. More than any other tactic, building and maintaining an email program that delivers value will help keep subscribers from opting out and encourage new ones to opt-in because of positive word-of-mouth.
Quality matters as much as quantity — the two are not, and should never be, mutually exclusive.
Arun Krishnan
Jason Penta
zlasker
Roshan Bangera
Jordan Cohen
eadlman
Geoff Grauer
Jerrie Gullick
Jon Beardsley
Nick Herman
Stacy Huggins
Tiffany Sumner
Avantika Banerjee
Daniel Egan
Lisa Khan
tgeisenheimer
pontiflexrob
Ganesh Prabhu
