The Email Wars

If you have ever tried Fat Tire beers you are most likely a fan. But why do some brand kill themselves with bad email marketing. I have long been a subscriber to many beer email lists (for business reasons only I assure you) but these guys kill me. I think I might need to make a charity phone call soon as these emails continue to hurt my good senses each time I get them. 

Read the rest of this entry »

I know that the Facebook momentum has gained a ravenous pitch as I see more and more people jumping into it. And not only are they jumping but they are guzzling the addictive life streaming service at a pace that is at times scary. So as the Nigerian email scammers that rose to rapid fame/hatred have found it too. They realize that there is an opportunity to stop using email, as it might be played out, and now are using Facebook to run the same scams. 

Thanks for leaving email to us and jumping on the social media bandwagon. You will not be missed. 

When I get an email that is so beautifully simple it makes me smile. Really I smile. This email was sent to me from the Mini campaign that was IMHO executed so easily that it did a great job. They distilled the information into 3 things. Yes, I love list that are short and 3 is a Magic number. 

This email helped me to know What was going on, Who could participate, and Where those that could take part are located. Now could they have done it different? Sure they could have sent it just to those in the area that are qualified to participate in the event, but why did they not do this? Well to me it has a viral effect with this email. If you were passionate about this idea and knew people in the geographic area that might be candidates for the program then you might be inclined to send it on to those in your address book that could participate. Simple, yes. Genius, yes. Easy, you bet.

When you distill down a program in email into bite sized, relevant information that has clear actionable steps you win. I would wager that this small program (that is a big idea) was forwarded on to many people thus growing their email marketing efforts and reach, with a possibility to grow their qualified list of people that might be future consumers and brand enthusiasts of Mini.

Home Run.

Here is another take on Barack’s email campaigns and when to stop. I can side at times with some of these thoughts as just this week I was sent another “DEAL” to get a T-shirt, Hat, Keychain, etc to support the DNC and help to replenish their coffers. Is this my responsibility?

The Audacity of E-mail

Dear Mr. President-elect, please take me off your spam list.

Dear Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, David Plouffe, John Kerry, Al Gore, et al.:

First, I want to congratulate you on last week’s astounding victory. I also want to take a moment to thank each of you for the many, many thoughtful and informative communications you have sent me over the weeks and months of this historic campaign. Each e-mail was like a precious gift, except that unlike a gift, each e-mail came with a request for cash.

Read the full article 

Love to see this kind of news. Helps all of us. Seems that they are figuring that this “Colo” was responsible for close to 75% of the spam we see. Amazing that this is in a 30 story gleaming office tower in San Jose. Good work folks that took this down. 

Amazing how complicated this seemed to be and how organized this was. We know we are not dealing with amateurs but professionals in most of these cases. Love this news. Only helps us and helps our inboxes.

Read the news

Transactional and Service Emails - They are the most widely opened emails. Why? Well think if you were booking a flight or making a hotel room reservation. You want to see that they got the dates right, that they got the rate right and that they gave you a confirmation. Same with shipping emails, you want a confirmation code. Now the majority of peopke NEVER use this code, but they want to have it. So how can you be using these transactional or service messages in your businesses favor? Think about it.

If these emails are so highly expected and read, why are you not placing opportunities to have a relevant transaction in these emails. So many brands and people just focus on the execution of getting the info to you, not thinking about what lift these emails might be driving to your bottom line. In a time when so many marketers are nervous about meeting their holiday 2008 sales projections it would be the perfect time for your to put these into place if you have not already. 

I wanted to showcase an example of an Apple email as they do one of the best jobs around of making sure to set expectations, tell you what just occurred, and give you an opportunity to learn more, get more, and upsell you against products or services that are relevant to your recent transaction. It is such a simple notion to use this as part of your strategy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pause… deep breath… one week later and 279 emails from the Obama Campaign and now here we are. But where are we with email and communicaitons? CNN reports that the Obama campaign gained over 3 million email addresses and over 10 million contacts (and I am sure of one Mr. Poopypants). So what will they do with them now? Is it over? Will we hear again? Will the idea of a President using email and web communications continue to hold strong as it seems that those that elected him want to have a relationship using this medium. 

The messaging got quiet after the win. I don’t blame them as I am sure that everyone on that campaign deserves a trip to a beach with no wifi for miles. I, not unlike everyone else wanted to know what the plan was. Well the next day Change.gov launched.

So I took a look around, kicked the tires. Solid social media site that is going to be used to communicate as news, ideas and plans shape up over these coming weeks to transition. I was not sure how integrated it was with the old campaign system, so I looked for the opt in method. There is was, top right hand corner but it threw me off as it looked surprisingly like a login form and not an opt in form. I completed it, was taken to a progressive profiling form to get a little more data on me, and then thanked for signing up. But not confirmation email, no double opt in, no welcome email… radio silence. 

Not a best practice at all. I have so many questions around what I am going to get, how, when and from who. It was an opportunity to tee up OUR relationship and set my expectations. But who am I going to call on this… the President?

Read the rest of this entry »