Recently I read an article by David Goetzl entitled, "Study: Email Spending To Rise In 2010"

Here’s my take away on the article:

Instead of cutting back on spending during this recession, email marketers are looking to spend their budget on cross-channel marketing including SMS.

A survey conducted by SilverPop to 300 marketers, reported that 90% of the marketers are planning to spend as much or more in 2010 than they did on their email marketing in 2009. Even amidst the recession, those who had a strong email platform still saw increased ROI last year. Why? Because even in difficult times, when other companies are cutting back, the most measurable channels, like email, let you see a real return on investment and it keeps your brand at the forefront of your customers’ minds.

However, eventually the market will turn around and you can expect nearly every company to be employing email marketing. It is forecasted that by 2014 consumers will receive on average, 9,000 emails a year. When that kind of volume happens, it will be necessary for marketers to cut through the clutter and you will be able to do so if you continue to build strong, personalized relationships now. In addition, employing other media tactics such as SMS (text messaging) seems to be a popular new avenue that will continue to build acceptance.

There is always the debate though, that SMS is an invasion of privacy because some people feel their mobile devices are solely for private use. However, if SMS is used only as an opt-in channel, then it is definitely a great source of direct marketing. If the number of emails to an inbox really does increase to 9,000 per year as the article claims, SMS will be a great way to break through the normal clutter of email messaging and get personalized messages directly to the customer every time.

Bill Nussey, CEO of SilverPop was quoted to say "as customers become more mobile, their marketing must reach them in more timely ways and through channels such as SMS."

Customers are becoming more and more mobile and if you want their business, you have to keep up with them. Email and SMS text messaging are a great channel for delivering messages that meet their needs.

Elizabeth Hunt

www.iangilyeat.com

        

The answer to this question is pretty simple - and it has nothing to do with difficulties in implementation.  The real reason is the gravy train.  Loyal customers are the gravy train for every company and who wants to share the gravy train with a pay for performance agency?  Very few.

Think about it - acquisition work is hard and risky.  If 2% of the market responds to your offers let the agency take the losses on 98% of their efforts.

However, when you have customer segments that buy every week or every month regardless of what you send them (you know 75% order rates on your RFM segments) - why would you strike a pay-for-performance deal with an agency for those customers?  Most marketers don't - and they have plenty of good reasons for saying no - but the simple answer is - you can't afford to gave away the gravy train.

www.iangilyeat.com

        

Lately I've been doing a comparison of email marketing providers - although it's a little unfair to focus only on email.  One of the purposes has been to identify a single platform that presents a unified communications experience for the marketer.  A platform that allows the marketer to send email, SMS text, voice broadcasts, instant messaging, etc in a single, unified campaign.  You know, message one is an email, message two is text and message three is a voice broadcast.  All automated connected and sequential from the marketers perspective so it can be set up once and let it run.  From what I can tell these are few and far between.  At least for a price that is within reach for small to mid-sized companies.

We looked at more than a dozen companies.  These included such well known providers as Vertical Response, Constant Contact, Genius, ExactTarget Lyris, Responsys, SilverPop, Alterian, Blue Hornet, Unica, Marketo and Eloqua.  As you can see there are many options in this space.

We were doing a fast look not a look that was intended to be exhaustive, say like a Forrester Wave Analysis.  We talked to several at length and others we only looked at briefly.  Some dropped out quickly due to functional limitations otherwise due to price.  We got to a short list pretty quickly.  We had specific criteria that were important to the business we're working with.  Things like cost, maximum limits on table relationships, send volume capacity, price per send, startup cost, breadth of APIs available, flexibility in the use of recommendation engines and so on.

Part of my purpose for giving the laundry list above is to express how important it is to know your own specific requirements and environment so you can find a match on the type of solution that will best fit your needs.  Every solution does not fit every company.

I won't tell you here which one we selected, but if you want to know, call me (602-692-3818) and I'm happy to tell..and to explain why we picked the one that we did.

www.iangilyeat.com

        

It seems to me there is a flaw in the way that some marketers think about mobile marketing.  The temptation is to want to send promotions to the mobile device by itself. - a single destination assumption - and apply production resources accordingly.

Thinking this way is convenient and it simplifies the production effort but it ignores the fact that many people have multiple mailboxes and they route those multiple email boxes to their desktop email client and their phone.  So, the old idea that sending email in multi-part MIME so that it renders in HTML and text is still a good idea. 

Even with the wild success of the iPhone, the iPhone has not net displaced the desktop or laptop computer.  I believe the need to address the rendering capabilities of multiple devices within the same email will continue to be standard production processes for a few years to come.

www.iangilyeat.com

        

This afternoon while reading up on email marketing to mobile devices, the thought was reinforced in my mind that email marketing to mobile devices will fall short of users and marketers expectations.  The reason for this opinion is driven by two simple points:

Reading email on your smart phone is great for convenience and for items that are urgent.  Most marketing messages are neither.

Now, I'm not debunking the value of mobile marketing. In fact, I take the view that mobile marketing is a hot space but believe other technologies are much better suited to the convenient and the urgent needs of the user.

Text messaging, as an example is well entrenched into reality TV shows.  It is convenient and urgent for those that are deeply engaged in voting on the show.  Text messaging is simple, it's fast and nearly ubiquitous.  It's great way to communicate at events like concerts or those enabled by location specific offers.

Consider too the integration of ad serving platforms, social tools like Facebook and the use of key tokens or phrases that pull offers from a web site to the phone for immediate viewing and interaction by the device owner.

The whole notion of a "mailbox" and mobility simply seem to be at odds.  Oh, I know email can be automatically forwarded to my smart phone and I can respond to it immediately.  It's just that the mailbox is a middleman of sorts.  It contains spam filters, business rules and attachments.  As a marketer, it just seems much easier to go directly to the mobile device - through use of the phone number - or GPS locater - and interact directly with the device owner - instead of working through that darn mailbox.

www.iangilyeat.com

        

Download | Duration: 00:00:00

        

I must admit, when I first started implementing ExactTarget, I was slightly overwhelmed. Ok, ok, majorly overwhelmed. It was the most robust email program I personally had dealt with to that point.

 

Thankfully, ExactTarget has one of the best help, training, resource sites I’ve seen: 3Sixty.

 

3Sixty has resources galore! What I find the most useful though, is the University. The University is a database of step-by-step, interactive videos. These 10-15 minute videos focus on individual functions of ExactTarget ranging from very basic, beginning functions such as creating emails to automating your email campaign. Not only do they talk you through each step, they show you and then you actually do it. ExactTarget gets major props for incorporating all learning styles. By the time you have finished one video, you feel confident that you can recreate that same process on your own.

 

Here are some of the other training and resources ExactTarget offers through 3Sixty:

 

• Resources – They have many white papers and case studies that cover a plethora of topics regarding ExactTarget. 
• Ideas – People submit different ways they’ve used ExactTarget and share their ideas with other ET clients. You can also submit ideas for future ExactTarget upgrades.
• iLab – You can be a part of the development of new ExactTarget innovations. Here you can see and test ExactTarget’s latest technology and share your feedback.  
• Question & Answer - Not only can you submit questions that ET reps will answer, but you can go back and search previously answered questions to see if anyone had a similar question or problem as you.

Not every email provider makes things this easy. If you’re looking for an email marketing solution, either to bring it in-house or to partner with a service provider, I promise your marketing managers will greatly appreciate you taking into consideration the resources available for training and implementation. 

- Elizabeth
www.iangilyeat.com

        

In some companies, how much you actually pay to acquire a new customer is a great mystery.  It shouldn't be.  This should be and is one of the basic building blocks of a successful company.

8X8 is a voice over IP provider.  Thy service businesses and consumers with telephone services over the Internet.  In their most recent quarterly earnings report they offered up the following numbers:

$638 cost to acquire a new business customer
$201 monthly revenue value of each business customer
67% gross margin

This is a company that knows how much they actually spend to acquire a new customer.  How much should they spend?  Well, let's think about this for a minute...

$201 per month in revenue times 12 months equals $2,412.  Not bad.  Spend $638 and get $2,412 back in year one.  This suggests a simple expense to revenue E/R ratio of 26.5%.  That's okay unless you work for a channel partner like Insight, CDW or others and need to run your marketing department on 3% of revenue.

Factor in the gross margin of 67% and they earn $1,616 in gross profit for every customer that they serve.

Remember the above is an unloaded or unburdened analysis.  There are many other aspects that must be considered up when trying to answer the question of how much you should spend for a customer... but we're going to keep this very simple today. 

Many direct marketers will tell you that they lose money in year one, break-even in year two and start making money in year three.  Applying this logic to 8X8 and they could spend up to $2,412 before going into that "lose money in year one" position.  If you want to load up the analysis a little, work from your gross margin number instead - and the number for 8X8 becomes $1,616.

Personally, I like the 26% E/R range that they are in.  The company is showing a profit and based on this simple cut of numbers they could afford to spend a little more if they need to.  That's a good position to be in.

www.iangilyeat.com

        

I love it... this afternoon I called a potential new client.  I was referred to the Publisher and Executive Director of a small publishing firm by a friend and associate.  I'm guessing this company has about 50-75 employees and maybe $3-$5M in annual revenues.  Not exactly a big outfit.

My contact gave me her business card.  He provided details of a conversation that he and she had at a recent conference.  Based on that conversation, she is interested in talking to me...this is what I call a warm referral.

To my utter surprise the number on her personal business card is a general company number.  When I called the number, a nice voice on the other end of the phone says, "I'm sorry she doesn't take calls from customers," to which I replied, "That's ok, because I'm not a customer."  The nice voice at the other end then gave me a generic email address where I could send a request to talk with her.  You know, something like, info@abc_company.com.  Nice.

I already have her personal email address so I sent my note directly to her.  We'll see what she comes back with...

Having said that, the message that comes through is loud and clear, "She doesn't talk to customers."  Too bad, I mean that's really a shame.  Companies do not exist without customers.  Rumor has it that this company has a customer churn problem.  Hmm... I wonder why?

Folks, I know this is marketing 101, sales 101 and business 101 - but talking to customers is a good thing.  Executives will make better decisions about their companies if they will talk to customers - even if it's only those that call in and ask to talk to them.    Sooo - if you're an executive and you have a policy or a practice in place that says, "I don't talk to customers" - change it.  Make a few phone calls.  Go on some sales calls.  Talk to your customers.  Better yet - listen to them.

www.iangilyeat.com

P.S.  You might consider automating a process whereby you do an Nth selection from your "customer complaints" and you personally get scheduled for a call with that customer to listen to what they have to say.  You might be surprised at what you learn.

        

3 Lessons of Great Customer Service – Home Depot

 

Let me share with you a recent encounter we had with Home Depot:

 

Background: We’ve lived in our house for 17 years now. It’s been through 5 kids and 4 grandkids and numerous other kids we probably didn’t even know. The poor carpet took the brunt of it all. When we decided to replace all of the carpet with beautiful carpet from Home Depot, we were thrilled! It was a lot of work getting ready for it, seeing as how nearly our entire upstairs is carpeted. It took an entire day but we finally got the carpet replaced. Oh the joy of walking barefooted on beautiful, soft, lush carpet!

 

The carpet and fumes smelt terrible, but we figured that would just go away right? I mean everything has a funny smell when it’s new, even babies. We opened every window and door in our house to air it out, but it didn’t go away and my entire family started getting sick. Our respiratory systems went haywire we couldn’t breathe properly or sleep and we had constant headaches. This has been going on for 4 weeks now.

 

We called Home Depot to let them know the problems we were having. We didn’t expect them to do anything actually but if there was a problem with this particular carpet or padding or glue they should be aware of it. However, we were pleasantly surprised at their response. In fact, we’ve been singing the praise of Home Depot’s customer service ever since.

 

Lesson 1: Listen and Genuinely Care

When Home Depot heard our story we could tell they were concerned and genuinely cared that this was affecting our family. They got the right people on the phone and made sure they fully understood our plight.

 

Lesson 2: Respond Immediately

Within 10 minutes of hanging up with Home Depot, the carpet installation company called us and then came over in less than 10 minutes after hanging up the phone to check out the situation. Home Depot also immediately scheduled a specialist to come out, check the air, and test the chemicals in the carpet.

 

Lesson 3: Fix It

Home Depot realized something had to be done so they volunteered to replace the carpet at their expense. Our carpet hasn’t been replaced yet, but from my perspective they are handling it right.

 

So next time a customer comes to you with a complaint, keep these lessons in mind. Listen and care, respond immediately, and then fix it! It may be at an additional cost to you, but it will ensure you a life-long customer. Plus good customer service is definitely a marketable attribute.

 

Note to Customers: Speak up! How can the company know we are dissatisfied if we don’t let them know? Had we never spoken up in the first place, we would have gone on being sick and upset with Home Depot for selling us this carpet. Instead, we are singing praises to their name because of how wonderful they responded!

 

Note to Marketers:  Pay attention to your customer service department.  Proactively act on the feedback you’re already getting before an upset customer writes a scathing tweet, blog post or newsfeed to their 500 closest friends about your company.  Many of you have automated inbound response systems in place.  Integrate these into your email marketing systems and leverage the event-triggered capabilities that they offer.  Use your messaging platform to incorporate a follow-up series that is custom tailored to the disgruntled customer.  These are the folks that can become your “raving fans.” 

 

Customer service is a marketable asset and if you take the time to plan for it your company will be ready and prepared with a great response when a complaint comes in.  It may cost a little time and effort but it will ensure you a life-long customer.

-Elizabeth
www.iangilyeat.com