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.

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?

1. Social sharing with “Like” is passive. I know it sounds almost contradictory to say it is passive, but it is true. Sharing will increase the overall engagement with your programs or content, but it does take a toll on comments and contributions to content. It’s a “hey check this out as you might like it as much as I did” type of action. Liking content simply allows your subscriber base to push it out there for others to see or stumble upon via their social networks. Social sharing can bring a massive extension of reach and drive campaign results higher, but it can’t yet be relied upon to accomplish the exact goals of your campaign, as it is still relatively immature – like mobile. Over the next 12-16 months it will begin to mature and we will gain a better understanding of its use, but for now consider it a bonus multiplier. Now is the time to experiment with the how, when and why you use it.

2. People often share without reading or processing value. How many times has your interest in a particular piece of content been piqued because you saw someone “recommend” it via social media, only to be disappointed with what you read/watch? It happens; there is no way of getting past it. And as a content provider it’s just a reality that you have to accept – not everyone who views your content will be interested in it.

Depending on your connections and the level of people being presented with “like”, “tweet” and other sharing options, the waters can get a little muddy from time to time. There are some things you can do however to decrease the occurrence of this situation and better deliver on content value. First – use the first 1-2 sentences of your content to summarize what you will cover. Even a simple qualifier introduction can help the most prolific sharers to understand what it is that they are sharing. Second – keep it brief. Ideas that are shared are quick to understand and process. They are starting points of an experience or engagement, not the end point. Third – decide how you position the content to provide a path for next and not first. Think about how this shared content can result in a longer term engagement using opt-ins, bookmarking, RSS or even a fan/follow us system. You want the people that do visit at the word of their friends to have a way of engaging directly with you form that point on.

3. Drives awareness or drives traffic? A little of both but there are ways you can focus your efforts based on your goals. Often times the main benefits of social sharing are the lift in awareness, followed by the rise in associated traffic. However, unless traffic is the end game for you, you must integrate additional tactics that can build off of the the increased awareness and/or traffic you receive. Think about how you can use promotions and programs to encourage additional participation. Is the email the only thing socially sharable about your content? If you aren’t doing so already, add social buttons and attributes to your product pages, articles, video and other forms of media. Doing so will provide additional visibility that your organic lift in traffic and awareness won’t provide alone.

Now my advice is don’t over do it. Think about which social networks are both relevant to your visitors/readers and more importantly, which are worth you making the time investment into. Sharing into sources that you have no commitment to will rarely lead to an increased engagement. Start simple – stay focused or you will be forcing yourself to drink from the water hose instead of the fountain.

4. Content sharing vs. brand following. Which is better? This might be my personal belief, and it could change in the future, but sharing of content by a “friend” is often more valuable than following a brand via social media. Now I am not telling you that I do not “follow” or “like” any brands, but they are few and far between. Some people might be more liberal with their social “friending” than I am, but from what I have seen there is a tolerance level for how many we participate with. Keeping that in mind, don’t plan on everyone that shares your content to become immediately associated with you in your social networks. Your audience can only engage with your brand through so many channels and the impact of engagement at too many points of intersection can often lead to the reduction of touch points in others. There is a balance and they will find it on their own. I encourage you to monitor and tie your social and email CRM together using APIs or Rapleaf to help you get an idea of the changes across media. You might trade one media relationship for another (this is ok) but what ever you choose, you’ll want the ability to measure and track it.

5. Often times it is in a river not a stream. Many social media sites call a set of updates a news “stream”. Depending on how many friends your audience has, how often they interact with their social networks and how often you actually post, your messages and those shared via your email campaigns may float right by your audience like a log traveling downstream in the Colorado River. I often miss things that my own family posts due to the fact that there are so many medias going on at all times. Now unless your subscribers or fans spend hours going back in the “stream” or you provide them hip waiters to head up-current, know that not everyone will see everything. That is part of what you still cannot control in social media versus email. Direct one-to-one messaging is still a hit or miss but when it hits stand back as the impact will sometimes outperform your email metrics.

I have seen many brands do a great job integrating their social and email marketing programs. They use stratgies like posting a link to their email newsletter or promotion/campaign into their social stream, then re-posting at least 2 times a day over a few day period to make sure it is seen while in the stream. Additionally, they use other influencers in their companies or partner ecosystems to help expand the reach. Be creative, just don’t look like your are shouting “HEY LOOK AT ME” when using these techniques. If you can show your value, you will find success with it.

What should your drivers be?

“Educate, Inform, Participate, Activate, Motivate, Inspire, Listen” – these are the basics you must take into account when planning your approach to using social within email.

I’ve seen social/email integration work best with contests (of course), important news items, coupons and video content. Top level content seems to be the main driver in many cases. The leading placements I have noticed have been the “Hero” (aka eROI in Italian) shot or main article/promo box.

As of now we are still in the awkward teenage years with social, many still fumbling, learning and getting a grasp on how it works best with their programs. And this is OK. My advice is take risks, measure, monitor and then repeat – or what I always refer to as the Shampoo Effect (lather, rinse, repeat). Better to learn now what impact social has for you so you can decide on how you want to commit to it before your competition eats your lunch and has stolen all of your “friends”.

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

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.

1. Time based triggers. I typically refer to these as customer lifecycle. They can be in the welcome emails, thank you emails, and sales prospecting emails. When someone comes to your site and does something you can actually start a clock that sends out emails based upon a “day plus X” factor. Using time based triggers you can continue your conversations based on the path you want to take someone down. Now the trick with time based email campaigns is that you need to always be reviewing and adjusting them. Just because you want people in the first 30 days to see X/Y does not mean that the timing always lines up with the actions. If you are using time based campaigns from a subscription you should be constantly fine tuning the spread on the days to find the optimum times. There is not a magic formula I can give you as every one is different. But I have some ideas. I like to work in multiples of 3’s personally. By using a 3 day spread you can move them back and forth allowing the frequency to have enough room so as to not overwhelm your subscribers with so many emails that they unsubscribe faster than you can saddle up your horse. The goal is to hitch your wagon to the right team so that they can all pull together moving the subscriber down the golden road to engagementville.

2. Event Based Triggers. Someone comes to your site and because you are a cowpoke that has saddled up some automation magic you can actually reach out to them based on what they have viewed. Imagine someone comes to your site, looks at your services and does not do anything. If you have the systems in place you can actually have some flows set up that trigger a re-engagement email that gives them information based on those events or pages that they just looked at. The big benefit here is that you are providing content that is focused at the “event” or moment of what they were interested in. The trick here is not to come our of the chutes too fast. If you hit them immediately it can come off as a little big brother. Give event based triggers some time. Maybe an hour to a day. Longer than that risks them moving past the event in their minds and may not connect based upon what occurred.

3. Behavior Based Triggers. Lets say you came into an ecommerce site, looked at a shirt and a hat, compared some features, or read some product reviews. Armed with this knowledge you could send an email next that uses that product(s) placed in the email. Even staying simple like colors or categories can make an impact on tying relevant content to the campaign.

4. Conversion Based Triggers. Similar to a event, conversions can be used based on goals set up in your analytics flows. Using a goal page to tie the visit to the subscriber you can start a series of emails based on the goal or conversion. Think about how a B2B company could use it for a white paper download. Now of course you are going to trigger the download email and thank you, but what about taking a delayed approach for 3-7 days later to ask them to review, rank or share a few other relevant studies with others they know. By using goal based results you can continue to provide focused content to that subscriber.

5. Transactional Based Triggers. One of my personal favorites around email. Often these emails are light simply providing the transactional info from a sale. Now when you add in other variables like asking for a review, upselling like products, or even giving them an offer on their next purchase you are building a solid customer relationship. Other things that we see work well with these triggers are customer surveys 10-30 days after purchase to ask them how the product is working for them. Did it meet expectations? Would they recommend it to someone else? Do they have any feedback for you? Instead of simply focusing on the sale, focus on how to build that relationship and open up the opportunities to continue to connect in a meaningful way. People that purchase can be the greatest source of telling someone else about your product. These are the ones you want to keep engaged as it is easier to keep a happy customer as a repeat customer than it is to continue to always seek out the next customer.

We could go down the path to create more ideas around triggers, but cowboy these are some good places to start. If you can be good at these five ideas you can develop a strong trigger based email marketing and marketing automation engine that will take you to the next level.

The trick here with any of these is to not get stuck in mindset of once it is live it is done. These types of emails need to be continuously monitored, measured and changed up. If you get into the rut of just letting it go, eventually the impact will wear off.

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.

1. The opt in: What are you asking for? An email or a combination of fields?

With simply asking for an email address you are only starting to building a program on a one to many approach. You have very little data to start your intelligent campaigns with so you have placed yourself in a spot that requires you to rely on learning over time, looking at data that may be siloed in web analytics, social data, purchase history, or even offline data collection points. Getting all of these data sources together is a process in itself that will keep you and your teams (if you have a team) tied up constantly in an effort to pull it together in order to get a true picture.

The solution: Many people feel that an email is a safe way to start an opt in and a relationship. So if this is you and you are going to take this approach, look at these techniques.

Progressive profiling allows you a few ways to continue this profile. At the thank you page, thank you email, or welcome email you should be asking them for a little more data. Now asking can be done with input fields (i.e. name, gender, zip, etc) or you can get creative with using simple buttons to ask them to choose A/B answers. Even having these simple answers can help you to append your database with actions and hidden form fields. Now it won’t be perfect, but it is a low impact technique.

If you are using a combination of fields, don’t require all of them to be filled out at opt in. Give them the option of completing them. And if you are going to ask for them, have a plan of what you are going to do with them. If you do not have a plan to use in targeting, communications or relevant content filters/rules then hide them until you trigger a field being answered and then reveal them. We use a progressive disclosure method on our own contact forms which result in higher completion of the forms. Taking a form down to it’s basics until needed visually allows people to know how much they will need to give you in order to get. And when they tip a point where more data is required then we reveal it.

2. Profile Updates:

Many people do not spend time during the year, or after an opt in to go back out and ask for more information. We all change decisions, relationships, jobs, preferences and even locations during the time that we interact with a website. If you are not reaching out to ask for and update (which we suggest 2-3 times a years and not just once) then they are not going to typically think about telling you. I know that we all hope that people would simply fall in love with us so much that they want to hit that Profile/Email preferences link in our emails whenever they see it, but from what I have seen it is only typical when they are breaking up with you during normal email programs. If you don’t ask and present the ask, then odds have it they will never tell you.

The Solution: Create a reason for them to update information with you. Maybe you moved? Maybe you are adding new functionality? Maybe you are launching a new site? Maybe you have something coming up that they would benefit from by giving you a few more answer? Maybe, just maybe, you could use a time of year event for fun in order to engage with them. Recently we used Valentine’s Day to ask, using humor, if they were still our Valentine. I know odd for a digital marketing agency like eROI, but really on cue for our brand culture and personality. Looking for those moments when we can reach out to help make our communications better are a good opportunity for us to engage. Campaigns like this work very well for us.

If you are a software company looking at pre-version release is a good time. Let them know you have a new release coming out and if they allow you to have their time for 2-3 minutes you would be in a better position to see if they were a good candidate for the upcoming release. If you are an ecommerce company using time between holiday campaigns could be positioned as helpful to your shoppers in order to understand their preferred size(s), colors, gender preferences, and maybe tie in some knowledge building as to who they might be shopping for during the next holiday. It all comes down to positioning it to be valuable to them, and not us as marketers. Travel marketers can do the same using vacation preferences, airport preferences, etc to build relevancy into the emails their subscribers receive.

3. Surveys: I know we all get so many surveys today that it might sound like a tired practice, but if you build it in a way that allows them to have an impact with the information that they provide you to lift the experience you are trying to provide them, then you might see a higher completion rate.

The Solution: Tie surveys to rewards. Now rewards can be monetary (gift codes/cards), value-based (access to content/reports) or insider info that others do not get. Presenting the tie in clearly is key here. We have tied some first 50 respondent gift cards to surveys and they work very well. It is a low cost strategy that builds the notion that they need to move fast in order to be one of the lucky 50. Think about what you can do with this data before you build the survey as a survey that has no action plan is a useless survey.

4. Consumer/Customer panels: Lately we have seen an uptick in consumer brands and business to business brands launching panels of people that allow them to get data more regularly. Now you can build variables of these based on customer type, prospect type, and even behavior type (i.e. subscriber, customer, lead, location, etc). Panels are great as they are a velvet rope approach that brings people into the fold with your business and can allow you to get better data as they are engaged with your brand and feel as if you are listening to them closer to make change. It is akin to being a stockholder in a company where your vote counts. If you do run panels you need to make sure to have a follow up to these segments letting them know what you learned and what actions you plan to take based upon the feedback. Listening and not sharing will have a short term negative engagement impact.

Now that you have some of the data, you are empowered to be a better marketer. Yet if you simply ask, ask, ask and never implement and do then you might as well go back to the megaphone approach to your marketing. Remember it is not up to the subscriber to tell us what they want, like or do, but up to us as caring marketers to listen, ask, and provide the opportunity to do better.

And I know you all want to do better, right?

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.

In looking at the Community site we built for Wacom (now 3 generations/versions in) for PenScrappers we made sure it was part of the email template in a way that stood out but did not steal the attention of the goals of getting started and exploring content. It is a light way to include it in the flow of the email and actually becomes a nice way to leave it as an expected element in future emails.

When working with Banfield they wanted to use email to introduce their subscribers to what they were doing in three social media channels. Now instead of just saying follow us/friend us they choose to add some value around what they were doing in these channels and showing a little of each in a way that reveals what is going on while leaving a little bit behind the curtain to help to engage the click. When you put some context and show what they might be interested in adding to the social tools their subscribers were already using, they actually help to build value and a story as to why it might be something or somewhere they would want to engage. People LOVE their pets and giving content that helps them with these relationships they cherish helps to solidify the approach.

With a new branded entertainment game show/interactive game we built for Starlicious this year (now don’t go losing yourself for the next 2 hours catching up with celebrity gossip and playing for prizes) we used a combination of the survey after we published a majority of the shows to then engage with the social channels. When introducing a new brand/property it is important to first build the relationship before asking them to take some steps that might not make sense. If you are to simply tell people to jump in and engage in these social channels without proving the value of your content you simply create a reason for churn. And the goal is not a constant battle for new points of engagement, but prolonged engagement that supports the building/continuing of relationships.

We also did something a little different by introducing one of their brand partners, Gain, as the channel for the Facebook relationship, as they have commitment to the channel and content to support it. Why bit off more than you can chew? It is better to focus on building and supporting one than to try to take on everything. Being fortunate to have a partner to not only promote but tie in and support benefits everyone with this method/approach.

So how are you tackling your company’s approach to integration, introduction, and value positioning by using email to support your social programs. There are many ways to do it, and I am not saying that we always do it right, but hopefully these are three examples that might help you think about how it might work for you and your email subscribers in a positive way. Happy Tweeting.

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.

We have had the pleasure of working with OK! Magazine  and a host of other magazine publishers and I wanted to share with you how some of them our email marketing automation engines to gather content, produce a newsletter and get it out to their subscriber bases in record time.

Knowing from years of writing, producing and executing on email marketing newsletters and campaigns, we developed a platform extension a few years back that helped us to focus on the content production. After all the creation of the content is often the thing that holds back a newsletter or campaign from getting out the door on time. When you can place your energy on your job in publishing of updating the content so that you are the first to publish and not worry about the curation of the content in order to produce the email you can have more time to do your job.

We went to the drawing board a few years back with first RSS and then a Wordpress plugin that allowed content producers and publishers to continue to spend their time writing and curating on their sites, blogs and web properties while our engines grabbed the content, arranged it, moved it into custom email layouts and distributed it automatically to their subscriber lists. Sounds easy right and a no brainer. But it took a little work to get it right.

Content always has formatting issues and images sometimes blow up in emails, so taking the time to make sure that these engines could grab and format HTML and text versions (and now even mobile versions) took a little testing and fine tuning. We put all the work on our shoulders so that clients that work with us need not to worry about it. These two engines can effortlessly grab content from custom feeds, regular RSS feeds, or even from posts and assets tagged in the Wordpress engine to build beautiful and timely communications.

We have our team working on some new engines that you might see in the coming months that will add even more integration with other platforms, CRM systems, social media platforms, ecommerce engines and more. So keep your eyes out if you are looking out for ways to make your job easier and the email you send out work for you and your subscribers instead of you or your team working to produce them.

Leading with the subject line to “follow them online!” was my first pointer to pause and wonder if this email I was reading was not online but I had printed it off or seen it on a bus.

When I see an email like this I think:

Social Media – Check

YouTube – Check

Facebook – Check

Twitter – Check

Email about Social media – Check

I don’t think strategy and a well planned campaign. I think OK we got social media cooking, we should drop an email out there to let people know.

Now that was what the check list looked like to me with SMART’s approach with this email. Here are some quick and easy take aways for using social media in email – and more importantly if you use email to LAUNCH social media how to approach it.

1. SHOW the icons we all understand – use the facebook, youtube and twitter (or other social network) icons. Don’t try to rely on simple text links buried in the content. This is a show not tell media. Do not make your own icons if they end up looking NOT like the ones we all recognize and process quickly. If your goal is to get people to use them then use the ones we all know.

2. Use some of the content you have been “busy” creating in the email to give me a sense of what I might have been missing. Tell me how busy you have been at it is of little to no value to a susbcriber.

3. Use email for what it is, a visual medium to inspire and communicate. Now I know that some people will not agree with my thoughts here but this example of a TEXT ONLY email does nothing to convey any importance or value from taking action on these. Do I really need to be “friends” with a car that I don’t even own? I can see how it might resonate with people that are owners of this brand, but for those of us that aren’t – give us something inspiring to WANT to add you to my social media whirlpool.

Social media, like email, is about engagement. And this email fails to engage me at all and more importantly left me thinking that they weren’t too SMART after all.

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.