It’s been awhile since my last blog post, and that’s not due to my lack of inspiration but more due to the fact that it’s been quite busy over here at Sitebrand.  With new customers coming on board weekly, the support team and myself have been swamped getting customers live and ready to conquer the world of personalization!  Working with new customers is always rewarding because it allows us to tackle new problems and trigger segments that we don’t normally deal with on a day-to-day basis.  Definitely one of my favorite parts of the job……

Email has traditionally been one of the largest marketing initiatives with any online retailer, and there is nothing wrong with that.  In fact, it’s encouraging to see retailers reaching out to their shoppers with upcoming promotions and seasonal sales.  I’m definitely guilty of subscribing to over a 100 different email newsletters, and this isn’t just because their our clients!  I do enjoy getting the latest deals, but I also like to see how retailers are approaching their shoppers and what type of message they’re trying to portray.  Only recently I received a large number of ‘Mother’s Day’ inspired email newsletters from a number of different retailers, which reminded me that it’s about that time of the year.  I enjoyed reading through all the witty one-liners and clicking on the different promotions that were being offered, but when I clicked through the newsletter I was sadly disappointed in the post-click marketing efforts these sites were making. 

When I get a ‘Mother’s Day’ email newsletter promoting a 10% of coupon, it gets me interested and entices me to click through to the site but once I get there……where did my promotion go?  Retailers are making the cardinal mistake of leaving the promotion or message in the email and not following through bringing the consumer to the actual site. 

With Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve, retailers are able to use our URL Parameter rule to target and recognize email newsletter readers and help create the same message from the email newsletter to the site.  By using a Sitebrand content space with the same message that was being displayed in the email newsletter, Sitebrand empowers retailers to create a seamless transition from the inbox to the site.  By having this piece of content locked in for the duration of that email readers visit, Sitebrand is able to help reinforce the urgency of the email promotion and remind the shopper of the coupon code once they enter the cart process.  This type of continuity will help the shopper forget that they even left their inbox to chase that ‘Mother’s Day’ promotion, and ultimately help convert yet another shopper. 

We have a growing number of clients using this new method of post-click marketing personalization with astounding success. This Sitebrand functionality is definitely one that online retailers will want to consider for today’s ever changing marketplace.  

A perfect example of how to target your shoppers once they click through from an email newsletter.

 

Alok Ahuja
‘The Road Less Travelled’

Your email subject line is the first thing your subscriber sees in their inbox, and that can be the moment they decide to open it, ignore it or delete it. Here are a few tips to help you write great subject lines:

Keep it short and sweet. Do your best to keep your subject lines under 50 characters, including spaces. Stick to one concept, eliminate unnecessary words, and use familiar language. You want it to be a teaser to get people to open the email, not a story that risks loosing their attention.

Be specific. “The Green Thumb Newsletter: June 2007″ doesn’t tell the recipient what they’ll find in the email and gives them no reason to open it. Ask yourself “what’s in it for them?” If the subject line doesn’t tell you, it’s missing a benefit. Here is an example of a subject line that shows the benefit of opening: “The Green Thumb: 3 Tips for Summer Gardening”.

Pique their curiosity. Does your subject line make you have to know what the content inside the email will reveal? Use questions, numbers, challenges and statements that compel the reader to open the email and reap the benefits inside.

Make it personal. Personalized subject lines are a simple way to secure the interest and action of your recipients. They can be personalized based on the content preferences, past purchases or web links clicked by the recipient. You can also personalize with the recipients’ first name, just be sure that your database contains a first name for each recipient or at the very least will display a default such as “Dear Customer” if the first name is not there.

Test it. When you have two strong yet different subject lines, split your list in half and use a different subject line for each group. After a number of tests like this, you’ll have a better idea of what works for the people on your list.

Happy emailing,
Alison

First of all, let’s start by explaining what an email pre-header is. An email pre-header is a snippet of text that appears above your header image and html of your email. The pre-header can be used for a couple of things, it can be used for administrative information such as asking people to add your sending address to their address book, you could have your “View this email online” link in there or even a permission reminder with an option to opt out.

Figure 1 - email with no images

Lately a lot of e-marketers have been using the email pre-header space to add a call-to-action and some brand recognition to their emails. This is especially important when you are sending emails that are all images with very little or no text, because a lot of people are viewing your email with images off by default.

Take this email from Forever21.com for example (see figure 1), this is how it looked when it landed in my inbox. Images are turned off by default, I can’t tell who it is from or what the offer is.

When I downloaded the images, I could see a really nice photo with an offer for party dresses starting at $13.50 (see figure 2). Wouldn’t it have been nice if the pre-header said something like “Forever21.com: Party Dresses from $13.50!” or “View online to get party dress from Forever21.com starting from $13.50″? At least I would have been able to tell who the email was from and what the offer was right away without having to download the images.

Figure 2 - after downloading images

On top of not having a pre-header, there is a smaller image below the big one saying “free standard shipping with orders of $75 or more”. If that was written in text, I could see it without having to download images and it might entice me to click through to the site. Who doesn’t love free shipping?

I’m not saying that every email needs a preheader but it is definitely a good idea to use that space to your advantage.

Happy emailing,
Alison

When we met with some folks from Silverpop for lunch at the DMA08 show in Vegas last week, we were really excited to hear about their developments with email marketing going social.

It’s what Silverpop is calling “Share-to-Social” – and it’s email’s first integrated and measurable social networking solution of its kind.

When users choose to share a message with friends in their social network, Silverpop’s systems are able to report on how many of their friends opened and clicked on the links in the message. This also means that marketers can get the same kind of 360 degree view of social networks as they do with email today.

It’s very much an updated forward-to-a-friend type of viral marketing because now instead of keeping the messages exclusive to the email channel, people are able to share their messages via popular social channels like Facebook and MySpace. It’s a great way of bringing all the channels closer together. And since this is today’s reality, it’s brilliant.

Since Sitebrand partners with Silverpop, this is exciting news for us and all our customers. For our many customers, especially retailers looking to sell more, this will be a great way to extend their marketing reach into the very populated social channels. But now more than ever, this also means the pressure is on to create really enticing offers that subscribers and customers want to share across their social network! Do this well, and you’ll find unparalleled reach.

Looking for how to maximize your email’s social potential? Sitebrand has a team of email experts who would be thrilled to brainstorm with you!

As holiday selling strategies are in full swing, conversations around e-coupons surface. Coupons – whether they are online (via email or a website) or traditional (like those in the Sunday paper which are also referred to as free-standing inserts or FSIs) – are a great sales incentive, margins permitting of course. In reviewing MarketingSherpa’s 2008 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide, I came across some interesting numbers in terms of average redemption rates. I suppose it shouldn’t come as any huge surprise that traditional coupons account for 84% of all coupons used by US shoppers. But the average redemption rate is just 1.2%. I know for a fact that I’ll occasionally put these types of coupons in my purse…only to have them sit past the date of expiry because I forget to use them. You see there’s a gap of time between the time you get the coupon and the time it takes to get to the store to purchase.

On the flip side, you’ve got online coupons that have reported average redemption rates of 5-20%. And I think the rationale is simple. When we’re online – either on a website or reading email – we’re just a few clicks away from making a potential purchase. There’s no major gap in time like the previous scenario with traditional coupons. Therefore the e-coupon sets the shopper up for immediate savings and gratification.

According to Sherpa, most agree that online coupons have a higher redemption rate than traditional coupons because online coupons are directly sought out by consumers and not received passively in the Sunday paper.

But for e-commerce marketers who take targeting and personalization seriously, these online consumers don’t have to be sourcing online coupons on their own. They can also be served or presented with very specificly targeted online coupons. Why wait for them to find your incentive when you can serve it to them on a silver platter?

At Sitebrand, we have several clients using our personalization platform to recognize and respond to various shopping segments. For the segment that might be searching for bargains, an online coupon / 10% discount type campaign makes a ton of sense. But other segments that might be looking for things like “what’s new”, perhaps you don’t want or need to offer an online coupon. Instead it probably makes more sense to present a campaign that features “See our new fall line-up…” or “Check out these top-rated products”. You get my point. Just because you can offer an e-coupon with special savings doesn’t mean you should. Understanding your buyers. This is what it all comes back to. Using web personalization technology to help you create the online dialog. This is a competitive advantage.

To see some innovative uses of web personalization – discount coupons included – check out the full line-up of Sitebrand case studies…