Email Marketing Personalization, Nullified

I just wanted to share some Null-ification spotted on twitter last week.

Do you see how well personalized this email is? Our friend Null tried to send us a great follow up, just to check in. Actually he is not just a run of the mill Null, he is the best Null according to his sign off.

I definitely like the way his phone number is personalized too. Isn’t that cool? Your name is Null and your phone number is also Null. It must be super custom, because normally phone numbers have more than 4 digits.

The best part of it is that they remembered not to address me by my first name. Yes, some people like that, but I don’t know Null personally, so that would be awkward. If you look very closely, you can see how they left my name out, by the extra spaces between Hello and the comma. One Pro Question remains, did you survey to get this brilliant personalization or was it via analytics?

All props go to @rorycarlyle for sharing this great example of #bad #personalization with us on twitter.

About the Author: Jordie van Rijn is an independent email marketing consultant at EmailMonday and editor of Emailvendorselection.com. You can also find him @jvanrijn.

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You Might Be a Spammer If

Nice to meet you, Mr. Legitimate Email Marketer. Actually, you look kind of familiar. Have we met before?

You look just like this guy I know…what was his name? Oh yes! You look just like Mr. Spam!

Oh – I do apologize. I didn’t mean to make you angry. You’ve heard of him, then?

Oh, you’re talking about the guy with the Viagra and Rolexes you can win and free iPads and friends in unfortunate situations who just happen to be rich, generous Nigerian princes. Yes, I know him – that’s Scam Spam.

But I’m talking about his brother, Oblivy S. Spam. That’s the one you look like. Oblivy’s got a real business and just wants to promote it honestly. But he’s a little desperate for results, so sometimes he crosses the line.

Know who I mean? He’s that guy who:

- Is an affiliate for twelve companies – and promotes them all to that one, tired list.

- When asked where he got those new addresses he’s importing to his list, whines, “I just found them!”

- Has accounts with multiple email service providers. When his message doesn’t go through from the first one, he just sends it from the other!

- Is trying to write an app to dump each new Facebook contact’s details into his subscriber list, and can’t understand why no one will help him!

- Puts {firstname}in the from line of his email to {firstname}. Everyone likes to hear from themselves.

- Considers it perfectly legitimate to send a reply without actually having gotten a message to reply to in the first place.

- Is on the email service provider ‘s speed dial. And not because he’s a high roller.

- Developed carpal tunnel syndrome from hitting “return” over and over, pushing his unsubscribe link down to the depths where subscribers will never find it.

- Has CAN-SPAM printed out and tacked to his wall, scribbled with notes about every loophole he can find.

- Realizes, when complaint rates for his daily emails spike, that he’s not been sending enough value. So he doubles his sends.

- When someone mentions confirmed opt-in, mutters, “Fascists,” and changes the topic to that new multi-level marketing “opportunity.”

- Kick-started his motorcycle marketing campaign with a welcome email to his cat-lovers club. After all, both things purr!

- When applying for membership on that industry website, listed his reason for joining as, “So I can provide relevant value with my targeted messages.”

- Thinks the spam score-o-meter is just like his grade school report card and he’s striving to hit 100%.

You’re nodding now. I can tell you’ve met Oblivy S. before. Are you two related?

No, you say? Well…good.

About the Author: Amanda Gagnon blogs about email marketing at the AWeber, an email service provider. You can also find her @AmandaEGagnon.

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Ignore Email Marketing ‘Best Practices’, Period.

Before you disregard this post due to its title, humor me and read through the first paragraph. If you agree, disagree or have something to say; please comment. This post is more for brain food than expertise for you to follow. Understand; there are many “good practices” or “general practices” within the email marketing space, but not all apply to every company’s needs or even the needs of the general email marketing populous. Still reading?

“Best practices”, the phrase, is a bit misleading.  It leads one to assume that what’s good or ‘best’ for one is just as good for another – that’s false.  My suggestion is to use the general practices of the industry to create a solid foundation for your email program as a beginning. If you’re already waist deep in a program that’s in need of new life, I recommend you remove practices one at a time till you can pin point where the program lacks and apply what’s generally working to fill the void. Sound dumb?

I hope not, it’s not where it ends. From that point, application of the “best practice” for that program is where the difference is made. Defining key indicators and recipient trends will reveal where the real jewels are. That’s your “best practice”; what’s best for your recipients, customers, prospects and partners is the motivation. Finding what they like, react to, spend time/money on and garner value from is your programs “best practice”. Make sense?

Relationship and expectations are what drive email success. It’s in your best interest to not take the short cut and follow a “best practice” that’s not yours.

Viva la Email!

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Email Marketing Overkill

The cartoon below brilliantly illustrates indiscriminate email marketing tactics, run amok. Enjoy.

Kudos to Bryan at Email Marketing Voodoo who first spotted it on bradcolbow.com. I found it on Return Path’s Club Inbox.

Email Marketing Cartoon

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Let's Play The Unsubscribe Game

Bonnier Corporation is a publisher of lifestyle magazines and online properties. Of their 50+ titles Sailing World, TransWorld SKATEboarding, and SNOW are among my favorites.

However, when I recently attempted to opt-out of one newsletter I noticed a host of missed opportunities and one big problem. Take a quick look at the following image and tell me if you can easily find the unsubscribe link:

Bonnier Corporation

(By the way, don’t even get me started on the rendering of the links in the footer)

Once you’ve finally found, and clicked on, the unsubscribe link imagine that you’ve entered your email address (which is completely unnecessary by the way) and click submit. Which button on the bare-bones page below would you pick?

Bonnier Corporation

If you’re anything like me you would either A) click the first button (which I did two weeks ago) or B) hit enter on your keyboard. In either scenario the window simply closes. No confirmation. No nothing. Note: Perhaps you’re smarter than me or maybe I’m busier than you. :) No matter the case, I was surprised to see the very same newsletter in my inbox this morning.

I’m an email-friendly guy so I don’t want to hit the ‘report as spam’ button so I tried unsubscribe again only time I took a bit more time, read more carefully, and clicked the correct button. Voila. I see by the confirmation message below. And that’s all I see.

Bonnier Corporation

Granted, I live and dream email marketing but I’ve seen firsthand that a well crafted opt-out process will allow marketers to gather valuable intelligence, reduce attrition, improve deliverability, and even gain more loyalty.

My advice to Bonnier Corporation?

  1. Don’t be sneaky. Don’t try to be sly with the opt-out language in the email and placement of the unsubscribe button. (Not to mention the lack of confirmation when I clicked the misplaced unsubscribe button.) If I want out, let me leave. Otherwise you risk damaging the reputation of your brands and certainly that of your email deliverability (this is the big problem I mentioned).
  2. Don’t make me feel like a second-class citizen. The lack of the effort you’ve put into the opt-out page screams that you no longer care about me. You should. Simply because I no longer want this particular newsletter it doesn’t mean that I don’t buy your magazines or the products of your advertisers.
  3. Learn from me. Survey me or ask me set my preferences (i.e. weekly, monthly, never). Maybe I like the newsletter, but not the frequency? Or perhaps, I’m no longer in the market.  You’ll never know of you don’t ask.
  4. Try to keep me. You could use humor or some other devise, perhaps coupled with an incentive, to get me to stay. GroupOn does an excellent job.
  5. Profit from me. For starters, brand the opt-out pages. It’s free money. Ask me to buy something, subscribe to other more relevant publications, or join you on the social networks. Hell, why not display ads? You’ve got my attention. Capitalize on it.

As I mentioned, I’m busy so I’m fairly certain that I’ve overlooked several other missed opportunities. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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