Lessons from the Front Lines Email Marketing News, Articles, Strategies and things we should all think about
11.26.2008
Comcast annoying customers old school style
Yesterday I got another mailer from Comcast. For all those who use Comcast, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. That singled sheet of paper folded and sealed together that says "Important information about your service" on the outside, and promotions for different Comcast plans inside. This really annoys me. If a mailer, letter, etc. says "Important information about your service" on it, I expect it to contain important information about my service, not some promotion for more expensive packages. Plus, they send these things all the time.
How would this mailer fare as an email message? How many unsubscribe requests would it receive from annoyed customers? I don't care what medium a company uses, their messages shouldn't annoy their customers. I can't help but think that if these messages were in email format, Dylan and Alex would have posted several entries about Comcast's poor practices.
I'm reading a book about professional service firms for a class I'm taking. The authors describe their ideas of best practices for the professional service industry. One of the areas they touch upon is employee satisfaction. They believe that employers should make jobs as enjoyable as possible for their employees because happy employees are more productive employees.
These authors, and plenty of employees, would approve of something like the Portland Advertising Federation's Rosey Awards. I had the opportunity to attend this event, by volunteering for it. It was a fun night of drinking, mingling, perusing through work, and watching some entertaining emcees. Check out Ryan's post about the Roseys to see the crazy hosts. Winning an award has got to give employees a big confidence/ego boost.
http://eroidays.com/2008/11/22/portland-ad-federation-paf-roseys-big-success/ Posted by: Jeff Kempf
at 11:14 AM | Permalink
11.19.2008
Skepticism, the scam fighter
Scams are everywhere, and they’ll probably increase with the employment rates. Yesterday I got a phone scam telling me I had to do something about the factory warranty on my car. I don’t remember exactly what they wanted me to do because I was very skeptical and didn’t give the automated system my full attention. A few months ago I got a new car, so the scam might have been relevant (depending on what they wanted). Anyways, I have some advice for avoiding scams.
First of all, be skeptical of anything that contacts you and asks for your information. Remember that some place, like your bank or college, already has all your information, so there’s no reason that they’d need to contact you over the phone or email to collect it. If you think a message might be real, contact that business first. Use contact information from something you acquired yourself, like a business card or bank statement. DO NOT USE THE WEBSITE, EMAIL ADDRESS, OR PHONE NUMBER LISTED IN THE SUSPECTED SCAM. Another thing that tipped me off was the fact that this phone call didn’t mention what company it was with. It just said I had to renew my warranty, or something along those lines, and offered to connect me to an operator. In case you’re curious, this scam called me from the following number: (605)462-6063.
Unfortunately, scammers are resourceful. As technology advances, so do scams. We’ve all seen, or at least heard about email scams, but now we also have Facebook scams. Read Dylan’s post and the article he links to for more information at http://theemailwars.com/2008/11/13/sweet-you-found-facebook/. Remember what I said about being skeptical? Well, I think this article speaks for itself. Personally, I think this sounds like the most obvious scam ever, but I guess some people must believe it. I love the last line in the article stating that your friends are unlikely to get stranded penniless in West Africa. Posted by: Jeff Kempf
at 11:43 AM | Permalink
11.14.2008
Scare Tactics
To any advertisers out there that might be reading this, please don’t use scare tactics to create ads. Very rarely do I see a fear-based ad that I think is effective. If you want to create an emotional connection with customers, try using a positive emotion. Do you really want customers to associate your brand with fear? Is that the best decision? Is that healthy? I’ve seen a few fear-based ads that I thought were well done, some of those car commercials about the passengers surviving accidents. These ads were pretty good as individual ads, but could you imagine a successful fear-based campaign? I’m having trouble envisioning one (but that might be because I only got 4 ½ hours of sleep last night). When I think of fear-based advertising, the first ad that comes to my mind is LBJ’s infamous “Daisy” ad. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the background of this ad, Lyndon Johnson was running against Goldwater (I forgot his first name). This was during the 1964 election, and Cold War tensions were very high. Goldwater had a history of being trigger-happy, so Johnson played off it. The ad was only shown once, then pulled off TV for obvious reasons. Tell me if you think this commercial creates social harm or social good.
If you work with email marketing, then you're probably aware of all the different best practices. It seems like everyone who has ever sent an email claims to know all the exact details for crafting that perfect email, as if there was one perfect email to send to everyone, in every industry, for every product. Well, there definitely are some practices that will improve any email, like testing and proper targeting. If you get confused over some specifics of your latest email campaign, stop what you're doing, take a short break, then think about the fundamentals of email. Think about how the email will reach the reader. If you were in the reader's shoes, would you read the email and click through it? If not, what makes you think the reader will? In his blog, Dylan claims the three most important elements of email are deliverability, the welcoming message, and creative. This might sound like just another set of best practices, but they make sense. Check it out at http://theemailwars.com/2008/11/10/3-things-to-be-good-at/#more-1302 Posted by: Jeff Kempf
at 9:20 AM | Permalink
11.05.2008
Innovative Sustainability
Yesterday, Ryan posted an entry on his blog about Tom Szaky. He's the co-founder of TerraCycle, a company that makes household goods out of waste. If you get a chance, watch the Donny Deutsch video. His business is booming (I'm sure the coverage on Donny Deutsch didn't hurt), he's made the cover of Inc. Magazine, and he's coming to Portland. If you 'd like to meet him and hear what he has to say, come to the eROI office on Saturday, Nov. 15th at noon for a free afternoon. For more information, and a link to the video, visit eROI Days.
At eROI, we're always searching the net for the latest new trends and websites. Of course, we tend to search for sites that we can use for marketing purposes; however, these sites expand well beyond marketing usage. Check them out. They're fun.
New Social Media One Stop Do you like blogs and online communities but wish they were a little more chaotic? Check out this site where users can post just about anything. http://www.soup.io/
Add Video in 12 Second bursts to Twitter or other places If you like YouTube, check out this 12 second video site. Find creative uses for this site. http://12seconds.tv/home
Use for testing Subject lines This site predicts the success of book titles, but it can also be used to test email subject lines. http://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php
Join Up with more than 1700 email marketers Want to join a network of email marketers? Email Marketer's Club has more than 1,700 of them. http://www.emailmarketersclub.com/
Get a 1 year sub digitally to your favorite magazine Worried about your carbon footprint? Save some trees by subscribing digitally to your favorite magazines. http://goreadgreen.com/
