The Email Wars

Many of you might not have tried content sharing in your emails yet. Sure you added a Follow Us, Friend Us, Fan Us, Sweat Us (I made that last one up) link in your header or footer but is that really making an impact and driving lift to your campaigns. You might be surprised at the results and some simple tests and implementations will allow you to show results to those you need to prove the integration of the channel to with data.

Many people are promoting social sharing today in their systems, but before you go down the path for a feature you should give it a try. With developing some ideas on how to place it, where to place it, and what your goals are of using it you can get started fairly quick. Don’t over think it. It is a test. But do have some clear goals or hypothesis in mind to be watching. It is really easy to test and learn how it works for you.

I would suggest starting at the KEY point in the email. Is is a sale, deal, new article, study, event, webinar… what is it. Start by testing the main focus of the email. Give it some time to see how it works. If you are using social sharing through other means like placing links into these ecosystems manually, make sure that you are using different links in order to track them as separate efforts.

Here are the simple codes to use:

Facebook Share Button Code

Here is the Facebook share code, which can also be found at http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php/.

<script type="text/javascript">
     function fbs_click() {
	u=location.href;
	t=document.title;
	window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(u)+'&t='+encodeURIComponent(t),'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436');
	return false;
     }
</script>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=LINK_GOES_HERE" onclick="return fbs_click()" target="_blank">
    <img src="ADD_IMAGE_URL_HERE" alt="Share on Facebook" />
</a>

Twitter Share Button Code

Here is the Twitter share code:

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading: LINK_GOES_HERE" title="Click to share this post on Twitter">
    <img src="ADD_IMAGE_URL_HERE" alt="Share on Twitter" />
</a>

LinkedIn Share Button Code

Here is the LinkedIn share code, which can also be found at http://developer.linkedin.com/docs/DOC-1075.

<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url={articleUrl}&title={articleTitle}&summary={articleSummary}&source={articleSource}" target="_blank">
    <img src="ADD_IMAGE_URL_HERE" />
</a>

Now your challenge is to test some of your content specific (deals, articles, events) in each newsletter or email campaigns. Don’t try to overshare and give everything in the email the ability – but selective choose 1-3 areas depending on the campaign and test them. These can be used in your emails as well as used on landing pages associated with the campaigns as well.

Start simple, refine and expand.

One other thing I would suggest is to use a URL shortening service like Bit.ly or Ar.gy to track how they are used and spread across the web. Use a different one for each of the above links and medias (LI/FB/TW).

Now go get em.

“Friend”, “Fan”, “Follower”, “Like”

What impact do these new notions have on your customer and subscriber base? Are these forms of ratings, measurement, a path to engagement? Or a just a new way to passive engagement?

Over the past 12 months we have been witness to the sweeping changes that social media has brought to email marketing. Eight months ago I could count on my hands how many companies were adding social media links to their email programs… today I would need to get an abacus to keep count. But just as companies are getting up to speed with the add-on of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to their email headers and/or footers, early pioneers are now moving toward content level sharing WITHIN their emails. I will wager this trend will surge before the end of the year as marketers see that the propensity to “share” specific articles, promotions and news begins to jump the shark.

But what does it mean?

We are all gaga (and I don’t mean Lady Gaga here) right now over the way that consumers, customers, and subscribers are openly jumping in to help promote companies’ marketing efforts. Within email we can see this engagement jumping to the off-the-chart levels that we saw in the early days of “Send to a Friend”. These two “features” are actually grounded around the same concept, only the medium has changed. But what makes this medium different?

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I wrote this article for iMediaConnection the other week. Thought you might like it.

Article Overview:

National Geographic asks for your preferences, your profile, your desire for each email type, and, most importantly, your permission
Timberland’s emails stand out due to brand consistency, large calls-to-action, clarity of messaging, and easy-to-measure creative tests
Banana Republic has stepped into its own in testing, experimenting, and being different
Rethinking “best practices”

What is “right”? Is there a correct way? Do best practices always work?
The answer to these and almost every other question in email marketing is, “It depends.” I know it’s a cop-out of an answer, but in all honesty, there is no right answer. There’s no global best practice that makes your campaign stats jump, no design layout that wins every time. It takes constant trying, tweaking, analyzing, and risk-taking. Calculated and meticulous risk-taking, I might add. And yes, in the end there is no “right,” only good job, mission accomplished, and what’s next?
Yet over the years of not just observing thousands of email campaigns but also creating them, I have weeded through the good and the bad to find those brands that are marketing in ways that move audiences and drive results. This isn’t about presenting you with empirical campaign data. This is about what works for me, and why.

Here are seven brands that are doing it right.
Read the full article

Are you running an email marketing rodeo or simply a one trick pony program? Many marketers run the latter as they look at the opt in to be a way to turn on the one way funnel similar to direct mail. Well this is not hitting a PO Box but hitting the inbox. The inbox is directly tied to this magical digital rodeo we call the internet which enables us to create actions based on actions. Have I lost you yet? I hope not.

Marketing online is taking a turn to marketing automation. There is not way using past techniques that we can always be there to know when someone is ready for A or B to happen. But using the new systems of marketing automation we are finally gaining ground to creating trigger based campaigns on actions, behavior and timing. It is something that has been a long time coming. I hope you are ready to take the bull by the horns and make the leap out of the chutes.

What are triggers in email marketing? Well they can be all of the following and more. Depending on what you are able to do I suggest you review these and saddle up with one or all of them.

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Over the years we have seen email marketing change from being a one to all to a one to one medium. Much of this has been not only pushed by the growth in the tools available that email marketers use, but in the tactics and knowledge we apply to bringing communications down to a one to one basis. Now although we would love to see more people using email in this fashion, as it would lift engagement, drive relevant campaigns, and allow people to get emails that they want from companies and brands… the problem always lies in the data.

Now I would state that the challenge does not lie entirely on the tools we use, but in the time that we invest in reading and making decisions based on the data we get back from the campaigns. Communication being taken down to a one to one basis does not rely on the subscriber, they expect it, but it comes down to the marketer doing their job of using what they know.

There are a few things I suggest that you spend some time on in the coming months.

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In looking through some recent work our team has been busting out I wanted to share a few examples of how we have been using social media in email marketing. Now I know I have busted the chops of others lately, and I am sure that we have things to test and learn still as well, but here are three examples that I find to be well executed from our team.

Why not use it in a Welcome campaign? What an ideal point to introduce it. If social media is a prime part of your overall digital marketing you need to make sure it is out in front of them. And adding not forcing social media introductions in a welcome campaign work well. These touch points are going to be one of your highest performing campaigns EVER so choose your focus wisely. If you have other goals do not make social front and center, but do introduce it in.If you have read this blog for any time at all, seen me speak, or worked with me on your campaigns you know how important I find welcome emails to be in a program.

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As a long time subscriber but someone that has not yet laid my head down at Indigo Hotels I was happy to see so many changes going on with their email marketing programs. I have had a little insight that changes were a foot there and this past campaign I was happy to see so many changes. With email that lived on the Haiku for far too long they have made the transition from an email that I always found a little odd for a travel company to one that now has my attention. They seem to have made all the right changes towards a great program.

Here is an older version from earlier this year that was okay, but the offer and all the BLUE for the hotel locations made me feel as if there was not anything more important than just a transaction. Each of the campaigns was very focused on them talking to me not having a conversation with me. Now this is not all that bad but with the new changes they have made some improvements that make me feel like they are giving me some better information as to who they are, what I might get and why I would look at a stay there. Before they did not have any social inclusion in their programs and not they have added it to the headers along with better text pre-headers that do not add too many pixels to the header pushing content down as their past layouts did talking about no image and add it to your address book. They have made the jump to a tight format that is appealing on all levels.

The funny thing is that it is not a major change in the overall information itself, but the color changes, information architecture and flow works so much better to make the content work. The inclusion of easy to read options (like mobile), occasion marketing (gets me thinking about when I could stay there) and the notions of escaping to Florida are things that are still transactional in premise but do not feel as forced as they might have before in the color layouts.

Now although they have made me happier with mobile web access and not an app (not everyone needs an app I will go on record on this over and over again) they have a little work left to do. The main one is the view as mobile version of the email. It might be the longest text email I have ever seen in my life. They need to look at changing this to either be a real mobile version or simply place some thought into what content really needs to be there. The last 2000 plus pixels listing all of their locations does not need to be there. I am presumably on a mobile device so a simple link to find these locations is all that is truly needed. Thinking through a mobile version if you offer one should be on your hit list. Mobile version does not mean text version. It means one that is viewable and actionable on a mobile device. Now I know that there are some that do not show images, but no one is going to scroll 50 click wheels down to go through all of these listing.

Hotel Indigo, you have come a long way and I am happy with the progress. My only challenge to you now it to starting thinking about usability with mobile/text versions. I know you can do it and it just might get this email snob to find one to stay at soon.