The Email Wars

eROI Case Study: Online Strategy for a Successful Product Launch (Get the full study)

To support the launch of the Intuos4, Wacom Technology Corporation worked with eROI to put a new twist on the product launch with an effective integrated online campaign. This case study outlines the integrated online strategy used by Wacom, including results of the multi-pronged campaign; email, microsite, and offline channels working together to seamlessly promote the unique aspects of the new Intuos4 tablet.

Enjoy exploring the site and learn how it all came together to support the introduction and sales efforts.

“We’re absolutely happy with the number of visitors. We believe we’ve received a 70% awareness of our target audience. I mean, that’s really good. Not many companies are going to achieve that kind of awareness for a new product launch.”

~ Marketing Director, Wacom

Get the full study

Any good relationship needs a foundation that can be built upon. Here are some elements that will help you build a strong email program.

Trust
What will you do with the information you collect from me? Will you protect it and make sure that it will only be used how I have asked it to be used? Will you make sure to honor it even when you think that a “blast” is ordered down from the C-Level? Your job is to take an oath to make sure that the information shared is clearly identified from opt in and presented in a clear manner that builds trust.

Clarity
What am I giving you my information for? Is it a contest? Newsletter? Purchase? What will you send me in the future? What can I expect from you in my inbox? A good program will clearly present the uses of contact, communication and the premise of the relationship. It is your job to honor that and keep your word.
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When it comes to relationships, is your goal to continually hunt for new ones, or to make the ones you have into long term commitments?

Most marketers are caught in the eternal struggle to gain more opt in records, having no plan on how what happens next aside from “let’s email them.” Marketing, not just email marketing, needs to have a plan for how to grow relationships once they have started. If you can think about next week / next month / next year, you can nurture healthy relationships and get out of the grow-my-list game.

One of the challenges I continue to see is most interactive marketers not beginning the thought process around where their relationships are going. They live in the now and rarely think about one month, let alone one year, from now. The better you are at listening, reviewing and making plans, the better health your relationships will be in the long term.

Prospects enter into new relationships online with the hope that they will get, clearly communicated to them, something valuable and beneficial. We can use a real life relationship metaphor to talk about this, as it sometimes places it into an easier to understand flow for most.

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Why would you want to build a contact management preference center for your website? You already have lead capture in place. You are getting 2-5 data points besides email address for every prospect. For your newsletter opt-in forms, you are getting the necessary subscriber email address. This is all good right? You have what you need to start communicating with people, according to your marketing plan. When someone above you says drop another email on the list and drive some sales, you are all ready to lock and load. Your messages simply drop the payload on everyone on your list in hopes that a good percentage of them are interested in something you have to say or sell. “Spray and Pray.” Perfect plan, right?… you have done your job.

Or have you?

If you are the one in charge of email marketing efforts for your company and this is how you approach email marketing, then maybe it is time you start thinking about how you are going to start getting tactical for the holiday season and beyond.

Why a preference center?

Besides simply their email address that you already have in your database, what information would be more important for you to know about someone in order to have a relevant discussion?

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Review time is in the air, and budget planning is on the minds of marketers everywhere. This is also the time that many choose to review their current email marketing platform or provider. Sept-Oct-Nov is the time we get an annual barrage of phone calls from people that are reviewing most of the top email service providers out there, looking for a better fit or a better deal. I hear a host of different reasons and questions; here are some of the most common:

Q: “We are looking for more features, do you have more than our current provider?”

A: “Do you use the current features of X provider? No? So, why do you want more?

“We have seen some other people doing great work out there and noticed that they work with you.”

“I am really concerned about our deliverability.”

“My current provider never helps me be better.”

“I am looking to send more and spend less.”

“We always audit this time of year, typically via RFP, but have been with the same provider for 4 plus years. Our corporation mandates an annual review.”

Q: “How can we get the data we need?”

A: “Do you have a plan to use it if you get it?”

I can play devil’s advocate on about anything out there, but what is really comes down to is that everyone is always looking for something bigger, better, sexier, and different. Not only that, but in many cases they expect it to be cheaper.

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So often people in this industry feel that when they buy a sponsored email it means that they will get a header and footer from the partner and can stuff their creative and messaging inside. It is so old and overplayed that I am not sure it works too well anymore. Personally I feel a little cheated in my relationship with the list that I subscribed to. Even tricked when I look forward to content from them and get something from someone else entirely.

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I have been seeing a resurgence in the use of animated gifs in email campaigns. In the past they have been an eye sore, but this past week I was surprised when one in my iPhone made me stop, pause, and actually pay attention. Now it was a really simple method but got me thinking about how we could use them more (and the fact that they rendered on my mobile device).

But creating action in an email does in fact help sometimes. See Style Campaigns post on it from yesterday.

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I have shared many campaigns that always wow me when they turn the email from vertical (as we all normally expect) to horizontal (scrolling right to left). We have used (at eROI) this approach a few times with client campaigns and had great success. But a few weeks back I wanted to test one vs the other to a random segment of a client list.

Now understand that this was a test. Only a test. We wanted to see if we tried the same creative in a different inbox presentation if it made a significant difference to the overall campaign metrics. Same time of day, same offer, same imagery. Controlled.

Well I wanted to share with you two versions of this campaign and before releasing the results with you to see if you have any ideas on how they performed. I know many of you will have some thoughts about it and hope to hear your hypothesis about the outcome.

You can click on each image to see them in a larger format.

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I’ll be the first to admit that it has been years since I “woke up with the King” but I am constantly impressed with the constant slew of campaigns radiating from the Big Guy in the robe and crown (king of like the eROI Crown don’t you think). This Angry Gram was first sent to me by one of the team – hope he was just sharing and not really ANGRY (since this email he went o Belize for two weeks and I hope he has recharged his batteries).

But let’s take a look at this campaign from an email marketing standpoint.. cool?

The Email – yes this was the Angry Gram I got and it made me angry. Why? Why don’t brands or agencies learn that LONG SCARY URLS WITH TONS OF ALPHA NUMERIC CHARACTERS are not friendly. Mask those in copy – create a tiny URL like KNG.me or BK.me – something rather than that. But then I am am email marketing snob right?

They actually tell me I can opt out from ANY other emails – so if other friends find this site to… hypothetically these emails will never reach me. Does that kill the viral effect/impact? Sure but it also is a great practice to keep people from really getting angry or reporting a spam complaint.

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We are in the midst of another massive shift in the inbox. It is not the inbox itself, but where the inbox lives during the average day of business communication or consumer marketing outreach. Today, it should be known and understood that people are checking email everywhere and at all times, looking on iPhones, Blackberry, Treo, Windows Mobile and maybe even devices we don’t rank as the top mobile platforms yet. So I wanted to put the thought out to you….

Should you care?

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Sure put out an offer, make a price deal, throw in a photo and you have a campaign. Pure Genius… in 2003. But look we are in another time and place now. You might still have the mindset to build launch and blast (sorry for that last one) but your customer is looking for more. Some old skoolers out there with heavy DM background like to argue this and try to stir the pot of the informed by saying it is a numbers game. Sure I won’t argue the numbers game but I will argue to my last breath that if you are not connecting you are not going to meet your goals not matter what they might be.

This example of the new Columbia Sportswear digital strategy reflects this (sure our old Art Director is over there now and took some awesome learning with him – plus they assembled a ROCK STAR team) change in selling.

Rule One: I am here for the product.
Rule Two if I would wear your logo then you are a “Prom King” brand and people love not only your wares but your lifestyle and include you as part of their lives where your wares intersect what they do.
Rule Three: You owe them a relationship – they give you their hard earned money and in this new media world want to participate with you past just throwing on a new super wicking light weight fleece.

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Hotels: Long the source of good and bad experiences, wild nights, hallway yellers, desires to not get up as early as you normally do and just lay in bed a little while longer… places of things that you share.

So why is this relevant? Well we have long seen online retailers focus on driving customer reviews and sourcing their community to rate products they have bought – but pulling it out into a hotel chain newsletter is a great idea. Sure travel aggregators like Travelocity have done it for a while, but rarely do I notice hotel chains doing it. (would love to see car rental companies do it by airport code)

But Tablet Hotels had recently added Guest Reviews next to the view details text call to action. One might think that you would be more prone to asking them to book now OR make a reservation – but the fact is that they are giving their travelers the ability to influence a booking. Great idea.

Also not that when they are introducing their new properties they are taking a different approach to those and leading with price and rates as opposed to starting rate and offers/value prop. I think not using the review on new properties is a safe approach as when opening anything new you need to get your sea legs under you before you have everyone firing on all cylinders. Give them some time to get a collection of Guest Reviews before you open them up to lead with in your email campaigns.

This brings into question if you did a program like this would you be transparent and allow everything to go free on these reviews (answering publicly those that are bad and making amends)? I put this out there as I would say yes but I can see legal and the (more…)

Sure you have heard this once or twice, heck you might have even used the line yourself. But what I am so encouraged by is seeing Abercrombie & Fitch continue with a strong mix of expected, long and WIDE emails entering into this retail season. We have seen close to 16 in the past weeks and see no sign of ending, to me this means that it is working with their email subscriber base. That for me is very exciting as I am a BIG fan of the WIDE email. Now I don’t want everyone to be jumping on the WIDE band wagon (sorry for the TUESDAY IS THE BEST DAY TO SEND EMAIL CAMPAIGNS – guys it is different across lists, industries, and many other factors), but I am hoping to see a few more companies give some new ideas a try in the inbox.

One other thing it looks like is that they are learning what is working when trying these formats out. I have seen PLUS 2700 pixel wide formats (too big for Outlook) and now this one is 1550 by 700 pixels. To me that is a good sweet spot to test. The range of 1700 to 2200 pixels is kind of a good place to try and still have some good controls in place.

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Taking a strong cue from the Price is Right this week, Alaska Airlines unveiled their Mystery Discount Campaign. Does this defy all logic of TRUST? Or it does it build the excitement and anticipation for travel junkies like myself to want to jump on in?

What they do right here are things that a trusted brand can do in email. They offer fun, excitement and give you a link to click that you have no idea where you are going… or do you ever really know? Maybe it was the fact that “mystery” was attached to the offer. Not sure why it made me pause, scan and then dive in.

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For those of you that know me it might seems like every week involves traveling, but there are a few weeks that keep me on the ground. But being a frequent air traveler it was interesting this AM to take a look at my top 3 airlines I travel and see how they have crossed OR not crossed email and social media marketing as a combined 1-2 punch. As the hot topic of late in email marketing of SWYN (Share with your Network) I took at look at the efforts of Southwest, Jet Blue and Alaska Air.

First of all they are all on Twitter and using them to drive deals, route changes, weather alerts and more. Jet Blue has even launched a new handle of Cheeps that works during the week to clear out deals on routes. So how are they using these two in combination with one another?

Well it looks like they are still church and state for the most part.

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