The Email Wars

Great study from ReturnPath this past week if you have not read it already. But it hits on one of my favorite topics, the immediate trigger. So often when I am auditing a customer’s email marketing program it starts at of course the opt in. Great I signed up and then the first miss… the thank you page. Such an opportunity for a personalized cross sell, exposure to something else, and even just a simple “Here is what you can expect with your opt in”.

Then I watch for the thank you email. You had me at hello and now with your brand in my immediate conscious you have the opportunity to start talking to me or even training me to expect what arrives from you. This is an ideal time to set the standards of the from line and even give a little something-something where you can drive a special offer or even some proactive profile expansion with data you did not ask for at opt in. Progressive profiling of your opt ins works really well here as we are building a relationship.

But then on top of that many people/companies/brands miss the opportunity to drop that immediate trigger. A recent audit I did had a 2 week welcome email and I was already so detached from them. Even with a newsletter sign up you run the risk of a month between email touches. Stop the insanity and jump on the wagon. Get something out to them immediately, even if it is the most recent newsletter. Get them engaged and trained to get emails from you.

The benefit of immediate triggers holds many benefits for your program and the personalization effect helps to solidify the cognitive relationship you are trying to foster using email.

Read the Study after the jump>>

Eighty five percent of companies failed to personalize the first e-mail message sent to new subscribers, Return Path discovered with its new Return Path Subscriber Experiences study. This lack of customization, combined with other missed opportunities, leaves marketers unable to leverage the true power of email marketing.

Return Path, the leading e-mail performance management company, conducted the study by subscribing and studying the e-mail programs of 61 companies from the retail, consumer goods, travel, and media/entertainment industries.

The problem is not lack of data. Marketers are collecting information at sign-up that could be used to personalize their initial and subsequent e-mails. In fact, seventy percent of the companies studied collected additional information beyond a subscribers’ e-mail at sign up. Yet, 75% of the companies that collected that additional information did not use it to personalize their e-mails.

http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2008/06/research-study-creating-great.php

Return Path has recorded a webcast with Bonnie Malone Fry reviewing the study findings. Download that webcast here: http://www.returnpath.net/landing/subscribers. Downloading the webcast will also trigger an email message with a link to the study.