Is humor always transferable country to country OR always right? So many brands have gotten in some sort of trouble in years past, but none of them have been liquor brands that I know of. We kind of expect them to push it a little further than most. And 42 Below is definitely doing that.

First the opt-in location is titled the “Hot Spam Injection”. I think we could stop right there with that one but it is only the entrance to this rabbit hole. They then follow with this disclaimer copy, “I want to receive life changing information on 42BELOW products & events! I understand that your Spam-Bot technology will relentlessly flood my in-box fast and effectively with amazing emails.” An animated gif to the right showing odd folks in states of lubricated celebrity helps to set the scene.

I am quite sure that even in jest this might hold people back from opting in. Humor is good while it is on brand but this might be too far for some people they are trying to reach. They have a great on-page confirmation message  giving instant gratification, as well as an age gate that worked too. If you are going to go this far you might as well go all the way.

On a better note they are actually asking for six categories of content filtering in the subscription form about the types of emails they might send or the content that may be included. It is good to see that beyond just having a funny site and opt-in format they are actually taking the steps to hold a relevant conversation.

But on the same page they are also CLEARLY making the unsubscribe available under the premise of “Plagued”. Once again I see the humor, but this immediately makes me think that I might be back here hitting this button and praying that they will actually release me from their grasp.

So far I have yet to receive a welcome email, a thank you email, or even my first campaign email from them. If they got people to opt in using that messaging then they have them on the hook and should be using each touch point as an opportunity to deliver on the brand promise and humor. By delaying 2 weeks so far I have actually started to not expect them in my inbox. I think that often brands that are not doing immediate or lifecycle marketing are missing an opportunity to strengthen their relationships and hit a few home runs out of the park. When a month or longer goes by I have all but forgotten about you and your brand.

Keep the humor going and keep the engagement happening out of the gates. Don’t delay those immediate touches. With something like this as your experience you need to not only set the stage but deliver on the brand promise as soon as possible or start to see the churn and your efforts go down the drain.

The sign up was painless, and the promise was delivered. I even tried to game the system by signing up deeper into the site with a link that presented zero shipping promise. What this tell me is that they have made sure to deliver on it no matter where it comes from. So for those that did not happen to see the offer in the footer of the site it actually delivers a surprise. That is something that I always love and think that shoppers love as well.

We all know from past studies and tests that people just love them some free shipping for online orders. Nice work Levis.

I also really enjoyed the main copy of the email. “You’re Initiated”. Why? Well it starts the relationship off under the idea that you are part of the club, you belong and can only gain from the actions you just took. The email as well is simple enough to show the benefits of subscription and makes clear what you are going to get from it. Win again.

But the part that I love the most (from a data/behavioral perspective) is that they have four clear buttons that allow you to jump into the shopping experience by gender category. Why is this so important? Well first they have not asked for your shopping preferences and armed with this first touch data they can actually begin to customize offers based on your actions. It’s the little things that matter to good email marketers and using the action based behavioral click data is a great way to begin a preference based targeting campaign. Do note that the navigation links matched the categories as well. Keeping it simple and focused is a great way to go.

So knowing this of course I tried clicking on 2 links that were not in my typical category simply to see if they are using this data to target future ads and emails with. Now time will tell but I am interested to see how it plays out.

Welcome well executed and I am looking forward to seeing what future campaigns bring to my inbox. I am also interested to see how long it takes for me to start getting regular email from them so that I can see how their frequency and cadence might differ from their comp at the Gap and other retailers in this category.

What is acceptable in regards to the time that goes by from an in store register, hand written sign up or kiosk to send a Thank you or Welcome message? Is it immediately, one day, 2 days 3 days or one week? I would go out on a limb here and say all of them are acceptable based on what the companies systems are best suited to handle. I mean as long we are not not talking a 2 plus weeks to a month we should be happy as email marketers, and more importantly consumers at this time frame.

Why? Well with quite a few years of experience and experiences with programs like these I know that there are still systems that are not connected, legacy systems still in place that batch at certain times, list management that must take place in one or multiple systems that make immediacy something that does not exist, or even manual data entry in smaller companies that must take place.

Chad White talked about latency diminishing effectiveness even after 24 hours when Thank You or Welcome emails are not sent. Now I can totally understand and get behind this idea when the actions take place in an online environment. I would be the last to tell you that delays longer than 24 hours really are poor practices and do impact a program. When you have someone online signing up for anything these programs should be in place to move fast and keep the conversation going forward. But when you combine offline events with the systems that are in place you should understand that there are going to be some issues retailer face that are going to lead to some delays.

As email marketers we all wish things could be better, faster and perfect. But when you put on the shoes of your clients, customers and IT admins you begin to realize that we are okay with a little delay.

I can tell you that if I was checking out from a retailer at a mall or store and I did not get an immediate email I would be okay with it. And I can speak from a consumer side and state they they are okay with it as well. Do what you can to move the ball forward if you are in an organization or company that does offline opt ins and try to get the window of time to be shorter. If we don’t get your email before we have stepped out of your store, got in our cars, or pulled into our driveways we are not going to be upset with you nor will we have a negative view of you and your brand. Some delay might actually be healthy for all of us.

What are your thoughts? Or do you face some of these challenges?

Love to hear from you and your experiences on this.

Well I assume that most don’t ask or have not thought about it. Would we willing give birth date information if asked? A majority of people would not and might even shy away from it if there is not an explanation of why you are asking. But what if you show and tell them why you want to ask it? I would think that if it was clearly presented from a personal win/benefit perspective that you would find more people opting in to this type of information.

But what else could you do to gather this information? Well leading from my post yesterday on Open ID the solution might be right within your grasp. Facebook Connect can help you gather this data into your opt in or profile management system in a really easy way. One of the data points that they share is date of birth. Now, there is a caveat here about it. Some people either don’t post it in their profile OR they use a default setting as they are concerned about posting it. Even some will just give you the month and day and that can be used in a simple birthday email campaign. You don’t really need a year now do you to make this work?

We actually have successfully used this Facebook Connect system on a site we built for a customer this past year at Moonit.com. Now we did find some challenges on people not completing it in Facebook 100% of the time, but if you present those data points in the return form once you have used Facebook Connect or another Open ID system you can leave that field blank, present them context around why they should add it, and then move to completion. Trust me as it works.

Let’s look at a few out there and talk about them a bit.

The first to look at it this one from Borders. They do a good job of not only providing a valuable discount amount of 25% but they also did a great job of making it easy to use online OR at a retail location with the bar code. I also really like the personalization in the subject line and in the body of the email. Nice touch. They also left the discount window open for 15 days. Now that should be enough time but I would leave it open for 30 days as people get busy and you could be leaving a sale on the table. I also really dislike it when emails are presented with so many legal rules around the use of a code. Does it really need to be presented in the email? Couldn’t you link to the redemption regulations on a landing page? It would be so better served there than in the email itself right? Just my personal thought as I often see so many companies add so much legal to an email. Not the place in my personal opinion as it takes away from the email itself and adds more copy that competes with the email itself.

The next one is from PiperLime. Now personally these guys own me. Yep I am a guy that likes shoes and they have my number. What I enjoyed about this email was the simplicity of it. It was clear and easy to take action on. The way that they moved the content to simply be about the birthday and left the legal mumbo jumbo out of it is key to me. The Borders one had about 40% of the content on the legal side and to me throwing up a bunch of copy that is generally about what you can’t do with this gift is not needed. Focus on the event and make it easy.

But the last one that I recently got from Alaska Airlines really stood out this year. One I did not expect to get a discount code from Alaska to book my next flight and two they sent it a month before my birthday. What a great idea to get out infront of the event and really stand out. Also it provides incentive to book now and not wait till later. Trust me as a frequent traveler with them that I put it to use fast on a little trip on my birthday this year to Sonoma for some wine “tasting” and relaxation that is much needed. I think the idea that they put into action is a great one as others are sending on the day this tactic really stood out to me. It was timely and relevant while at the same time provided immediate value.

So take some time to think about how you could use this event to your advantage. Even in a B to B world there are applications that you can use the birthday event to stand out. I mean I cannot think of one b to b company that has used it and that in itself provides a good opportunity to stand out. Maybe you should be the one to try it out this year?

So as I head down the path in the coming weeks of tacking on another year to my life I am looking forward to seeing who got in the game for this year and what my hit my inbox soon.

What is it?

OpenID is a safe, faster, and easier way to log in to web sites. End of story? Not really. We are seeing how users are just finding out what it is, and on that same note with the types of ways it can be used they might not really know that they are even using an OpenID. Why? Well it is guised in a login from another system and not your own.

Here is how Wikipedia defines it:

OpenID is an open, decentralized standard for authenticating users which can be used for access control, allowing users tolog on to different services with the same digital identity where these services trust the authentication body. OpenID replaces the common log on process that uses a login-name and a password, by allowing a user to log in once and gain access to the resources of multiple software systems.^[1] The term OpenID can also refer to an ID used in the standard.

What does that mean?

It means that no more different usernames and passwords need to be remembered across every website, blog, social media site, community site etc. What? Yes OpenID in it’s true form enables you to pass/share the content, profile, user info you want with each site you visit. So you can use Google, Facebook, and many others in order to complete a form, join a site, make a purchase and even more. The thing to understand is that you no longer need to always require someone to use your site login abilities and you can leverage those of other larger providers.

Here is an example I wanted to share to give you an idea of how it works. Odds have it you have used it and were not even aware that it was an OpenID, but simply thought you were logging in with Facebook into another site. The benefit here is that there was very little you needed to complete using actual data entry of your information and on top of this it brings in your data that you have allowed to be shared from your Facebook profile (in this example). Now the hidden benefit to marketers is that you now have opened up the ability to push data and experiences from this site into the users Facebook news stream. Here with lala you can share out what songs you are currently listening to. Now isn’t that so much better than telling people what you just had for lunch?

You might also see things with Foursquare in places like Facebook and Twitter using this same technology. The real win here is that it is easy to implement for any company. When it comes to emails you have seen everyone talking about the SWYN – Share With Your Network – ability. We have not seen too many people using it right. Most typically use to in email to gain “followers”, “fans” and “friends” instead of making it a useful tool to your users or subscribers. Think about them… not you.

How is this going to happen and when?

It is already under way. AOL, Google (see Fingerprint news), Verisign, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, The White House, PayPal and a host of others implemented it a long time back and are just getting more public with it. You might be already using it via OAuth with Twitter or using Facebook Connect and not even know it. That is kind of the great part about it. People are using other systems where they have trusted relationships and have control over how and what they share with your site.

What is it changing?

Well for one it takes the control out for completing forms from the fingers and places it into versions of profiles you might create to share with certain sites. Some very cool things are the multiple profiles that OpenID stores for the user placing the options of true validity of the data that they share to hopefully create a better data structure for you. I might be getting overly technical here, so in layman’s terms it should create a more real profile of your audience removing some of the false, hurried data inputs we see so often over the last few years. Less of “adsf@asdf.com” and bad name and demographic data that so users just don’t want to share or complete for you in order to download, register or get access to your guides, shopping, lead forms, contests, etc.

The Leader is…

We have seen in about 1 years time the use of Facebook connect going from 8,000 sites in use to over 80,000 sites using Facebook Connect in order to login to a site. Now we are not just talking about Facebook itself here, but CNN, WSJ, Huffington Post and slews of other sites. Here is a list of some sites, blogs and other ecom sites you might know of so that you can see examples of how it is being used. The ability that it is creating is going to be very big and I expect to see many of your own sites enabled this year.

The Opportunity

What this has shown us so far is the ability to get social graph data, profile data (36 attributes including email address), as well as the ability to increase engagement and provide more site and marketing personalization. So with using this you can drive content that is better targeted and present information, offers that really connect with the TRUE persona that has logged in. You can learn more about Facebook Connect here and what they state the benefits are to you and your customers and visitors.

There are also some more great examples here as well as some of my favorite uses in video and location use under the Personalized Experience category on this page.

Now to open your mind up a little more about this idea it also empowers you to push content back into the users stream to take content you have in your own site and allow them to place it out in front of others in their News Feed. Very powerful ways that you can grow your programs and efforts with very little time to implement.

There are some other great ones out there that we are watching like RPX. RPX is using Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Windows Live and more with simply using one code base so that you do not need to pick only one. Allowing your users/visitors to use what they want as their primary way to connect with you really gives you a greater ability to not only provide the right way for them but also gives you the greater ability to build your database with real factual data.

What do I need to know?

Well here is the trick. Just because someone logs into your site, form etc using OpenID it does not mean that you are going to automatically get that data. That data is just used during that exact session. So what can you do? Well you can create ways to use it to build a profile, register for your site, or enable a check out process on your side so that you can actually capture that profile information.

So simply enabling an OpenID in your site, forms and other places will not guarantee that you will capture the leads, but it will make it much easier for the end user to give you the correct data.

My Thoughts.

I think that we are on the cusp this year of learning from a marketing side how to best implement this new technology. But it is not going to be easy, or maybe it will. It will be really up to you to decide how the experience will be best served and how you can take the user from visitor to active registrant of your site.

Take some time to explore some of these sites in the examples above to see how it works and find ways that you might be able to provide it to your customers as well as in your own efforts. We have some of our own tests and plans underway.

My hat is off to whomever is managing all of these and my hopes is that they are using a content management system that automates the production of all of these choices. I mean for those of you that publish just one or a few emails you can imagine how many Full Time Employees it would take to pull this off.

If you take some time to look at some of the screen shots I made you can really gain some respect for the time and thought that they have put into this page. It goes to show me that email is a major driver of visits and engagement for them as well as I would assume a revenue generator in the ad sales for the paper in this electronic age where we are gathering more of our news from online than offline.

One of the things I wanted to call out was that they clearly present not only the text and html preferences but also the frequency and days of the week you can expect to get these emails. Win Win for them and for the subscriber here. One draw back is I had to make some changes to the ones I was subscribing to as I thought I might have too many on certain days. But on the flip side of that thought it was really nice to be able to make those decisions. I would assume that even with me opting in to 7 different editions that I would be happy with my selections and have better understanding of when they would arrive in my inbox.

On top of that if you dive in deeper you will notice that they are also VERY clear about helping you to make the right version selections if you are reading them on a mobile device. The thought that went into this email subscription/preference page is so inspiring that I almost want to go work for them for a week and see behind the curtain as to how they pull all of this off and manage all that data.

Bringing back down to earth now it makes me wonder why more people are not taking the time to create email preference centers that work as well as this one does. Sure you might only have one or two email marketing programs in place but could you do better by clearly presenting how it is all going to work and helping to explain to your subscribers some benefits they might have by selecting different versions from a simple Text vs HTML preference? Think about what you can do to make life easier for your subscribers. It will pay off in spades.

We are not only seeing it with content publishers but more and more we are seeing it across marketing and brand sites. And all use cases I have seen are pointing to it working and not being hated as much as the browser take over ads that make you wait 5 seconds till an ad runs or allowing you to click past it. And why is this? Well this one I found from a recent link (as no matter what you think I am not a reader of AskMen.com) was a good example of why they are working.

1. They allow you to still see the content you are there for. Sure it hurts the ability to interact or read it, but it does not create a bad user experience IMHO that makes you have ill will toward the site.

2. They opt in takes place quickly and then fades away to let you continue your visit.

3. They just look so much prettier than another window spawning outside of your browser or opening a new tab.

I would think that we will see more of these start to appear as this year goes on. As long as they are done in a creative way and are easy to move past I would not expect that we see much hostility towards the use. I have also lately seen them not open on a first page but X pages into a visit. We have used them in a magazine site to appear after 3 pages viewed with good success. One thing that we did test was based on the user analytics after a few months of testing. We found the average visit page view patterns and fine tuned them to 3 pages as we noticed a drop off in visits after 3 pages. By adding this we did not interfere with the intention of the visit and did not interfere with the content. The list growth has been directly tied to this tactic as we can tell the difference in subscribers coming from the normal newsletter sign up forms/boxes vs those that opt in via the light box. A little creative form tagging can do this for you as well.

Take some risks with this and see what you find. Try it on a few unique pages where you see drop offs or exits in the visit patterns. Or try it based on average page views and work backwards from there with an “X” variable. It all takes testing but without trying you will never know.

Long live the light box – or at least until we find a new way to advance the experience in a non obtrusive manner.

Some time back I saw them use it to promote a men’s newsletter through a simple tweet. Smart idea. Now I am not sure if they have some way to segment based on gender (as this would be great if someone could do this from a communications tool into their follower steam) but it did catch my eye and made me want to look further as an email marketer.

I had assumed that I was going to land on a general newsletter sign up page and need to select the right lists to be on. Well I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that they took me right to a unique landing opt in page JUST for that men’s newsletter. Nice work. Now even if they did not have the ability to gender target using Twitter, they do have more of that data now by the implementation of this gender specific newsletter opt in page. Now they know that these users are male. What would have made this even better would have been if they would have either used the Twitter OAuth system to login via Twitter and capture that Twitter handle as well as an email address. By doing this they could have added this data to their user profiles in order to look for patterns and ways in the future to interact better via Twitter OR the email.

But none the less it was a great promotion and a well thought out use of targeting and landing based on gender. It opens up many ideas in my mind about the types of user data that email marketers that are giddy about social media to think about using. I would even advance the idea of similar campaigns in Facebook and employing Facebook Connect to get the 36 data fields (email is now one as well) when creating an opt in form. I have been toying with this idea for a while now since the recent addition of email as one of the marketer accessible fields in the Facebook Connect API.

Thinking about this idea, do you think that you could push your teams to try something new with implementation of social connection tools? Worth a test I think.

But to get back on track I wanted to share their opt in and welcome email as I thought it was well done. The opt in does a good job of presenting 3 variations of the emails I would receive by opting in. I am always thankful when I get to see some examples located around the opt in process. I feel that it is a good way to condition people to what to expect. Almost in a way of setting up the experience of when I see them in the inbox for the first time. Adding the birthdate to the form must be a legal requirement for them or even one that helps them to look at age data in targeting. Heck we will see in about a month if they have a birthday campaign as well.

One thing I did notice was that they do have a cause co-registration for the Surfrider Foundation which is is line with their audience and most likely a cause that they support as a corporation. It was a nice touch to use their opt in to support a like organization. Might be an idea for other retailers or even B2B companies.

But it did not stop at the opt in page. They had a very nice thank you page that presented some options to help you engage and move forward. I would have been happy with their efforts right there, but then came a timely (not too delayed) Welcome message. Right up my alley in what I like to see in best practices and lifting the engagement. But they also took the extra step I often see so many retailers miss, they presented right there a 15% off discount code. Now I would wager that a large majority of people use it in the coming days if not right then. The fact that it was quick to arrive was also a good thing as if I had continued and loaded some items into my cart, bought them, and then got this email a few days later, I might have experienced some buyers remorse. So nice job guys. Love to see the capitalization on the increased engagement and hopefully an uptick in sales from this effort.

Overall even with the high frequency (38 emails tracked in the past 60 days) I have remained highly engaged with the email program due to what I attribute to the well done welcome email program. Now looking at this time period might be a little uncharacteristic of the overall program as I am looking at the holiday season, but they are doing it right. Knowing that I am engaged keep them in my inbox and has trained me to expect every few days now to see them there in the AM hours.

The takeaway is to really look at your welcome program no matter what industry you are in. Making the touch points line up and behave in a way that sets the course for a strong program will lift your sales/goals and drive your sales and engagement. What are you doing to say thanks and welcome with your subscribers?

Over and over I tell people about the importance of Welcome and Thank You messages when people opt in to a newsletter, make an information request, sign up for a webinar or any other first touch point. It really does set the tone, make an impact and build a path for your email marketing. Take a moment to review your own emails and see if there are things you can do to uplevel your programs. And if you are still missing a Welcome or Thank You email I would work hard to get one in place. First impressions are hard to make twice.

Example of this email after the jump

Subject: Your Oregon adventure has started
Dear Wendy,

Thank you for ordering the guides listed below from Travel Oregon! The gang wanted to make your Oregon experience as authentic as possible, so we decided to send your travel guides on a little adventure.

Before landing in your mailbox in a few days, your travel guides will soar alongside a rainbow-colored kite on the Oregon Coast, sit in the third row of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ride a buckin’ bronco at the Pendleton Round-Up (Let ‘er buck!), and admire the Birds of Prey at the High Desert Museum. After exerting all their energy at these fabulous Oregon locations, your travel guides will shop at a local farmers’ market and cook a gourmet meal with friends in the Willamette Valley, stroll through the Japanese Gardens in Portland, and windsurf through the Gorge.

Your dear travel guides will be so inspired after exploring Oregon ’s seven regions that they will love nothing more than to curl up on the couch with you and discuss future travel plans, while sipping a refreshing cup of iced Oregon chai tea.

Welcome to Oregon!
The team at TravelOregon.com

Order Details:
Date/Time: 12/29/2009 10:49:53 PM
Order ID: XXXXXXXX

Details:
Travel Oregon Trip Planner
Scenic Byways Guide

PS: If you’re itching to get a leg up on your travel planning, start today at www.TravelOregon.com or head to www.GoSeeOregon.com to see what travelers like you are saying about where to go and what to do in Oregon.

———————————-

Reply from this Welcome email:

“I truly admire creative marketing.  The email below is wonderful.

~W”