Dan Spellman ( My Two Cents )

Performing "Email Triage"

   

One of the sessions at the IRCE focused on email strategies.  The three speakers, Stefan Pollard, David Dwek and Lynnette Montgomery, had some great advice on how to manage the deliverability of your emails and increase your conversion rates.

    

It seems that we are all receiving way too much email these days.  Email has become the communication channel of choice and unfortunately, not all the communication can be considered value added.  Not only are we receiving unwanted advertisements in our personal email in-boxes, but even at work, co-workers seem confused about the difference between “reply” and “reply-all”.  When did email take the place of instant messaging?  Although I’m not that old, I do remember the days before email . . . when you either picked up the phone and called someone or walked over to their desk and spoke to them in person.

    

“An average person gets 274 emails a week in personal email,” states Pollard.  In order to deal with the flood of information, people are using “triage” methods to identify important pieces of mail.   By eliminating emails based solely on the senders name and/or the subject line, a vast number are never being read.  Pollard reports that 64% of people never look in their bulk folder and that 79% hit the “report as spam” button when they don’t recognize the sender.

    

This creates two problems.  First, ISPs will use spam complaints to determine if a sender is reputable or not.  With a general goal of having less than 1 spam complaint per 1,000 messages sent, ISPs are keeping track of what recipients feel are unrecognized, unexpected and unwanted communication.  “It is really about what the consumer wants,” states Charles Stiles, former Postmaster for America Online.  “Even if they asked to receive the email, if they don’t find value in it, then it is not a good email.”

    

The second problem is managing customer’s expectations.  Dwek believes that you not only need to allow customers to have the ability to easily unsubscribe from your email campaigns, but that you can learn valuable lessons when they do.  By building an effective email administrative center, you can allow customers to choose which emails they want to receive and which ones they want to opt out.  Through an effective opt out process, you can request free form text answers to better understand what is causing the customer’s decision.  With this knowledge, you can develop stronger email campaigns and adjust the frequency of the communication in order to drive higher open rates and stronger sales.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

    

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

      

I just got back from a “vacation” at Camp Napowan.  Each year our Boy Scout Troop spends a week earning merit badges.  Over the past 7 days, our Troop earned badges in a number of different areas including Wilderness Survival and  Life Saving. 

     

You would think that after traveling into central Wisconsin and spending 7 days / 6 nights sleeping in tents and enjoying the sunny weather, I would be completely rested and recharged.  However, being responsible for 14 boys ranging in age from 11 to 16 years old is a little like herding cats.

           

At least I was able to get away from the office . . . well, not really (My wife would tell you that I brought every piece of electronic equipment I own).  In order to encourage more dads to spend the week at camp, Napowan has gone wireless.  Yes, the Trading Post now has wi-fi.  Throughout the day you see a number of dads working their BlackBerrys or Motorola Qs to access emails.  You see dads heading to the Trading Post with their laptop bags as they keep up with what’s going on in the office.

    

While it may seem strange to be splitting your time between answering emails and building campfires, by adding these services, the Boy Scouts are ensuring more parents are able to be a part of their son’s Summer Camp experience.  All in all, we had a great time and I was able to be a part of something that my son will remember for the rest of his life.

     

Until next time,

     

Dan

     

     

     

Thumbs Up

    

Last week I attended the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition.  There were several productive meetings with presentations covering customer acquisition, social marketing, rich media and site design.  Several of the presenters were industry experts who have gained their experience by developing and managing some of the fastest growing sites in North America.  Other presenters have developed their expertise by providing the services to the largest web sites.

    

Accompanying the first three days of the conference were several hundred vendors who were available to explain how their products or services could be of benefit in the areas of SEO / SEM, m-commerce, web design and various other areas.

    

I’ve noticed a change over the past few years as more and more vendors are using thumb drives to distribute their marketing materials.  Not only do these devices allow marketers to provide rich content to prospective clients, but they also cut down on the weight – a benefit to the sales people who ship them to the events and a benefit to those of us who carry a cross-section of marketing materials back home.  It’s common practice for sales people, who work these shows, to offer trinkets embossed with their logos.  Offering a free thumb drive allows them to provide something of value (thumb drives are cool) that people will use over and over again.

    

Thumb drives (also known as USB Drives, Flash Drives or Jump Drives) are portable storage devices that plug into any of your USB ports on your computer.  They are compact and can hold a vast amount of data ranging from 64 MB to 32 GB – that’s a lot of storage space.

    

When using thumb drives to distribute your marketing materials, you should provide content in both rich media and PDF formats.  By leveraging video and Flash applications, you can craft a compelling message about the benefits of your product or service.  At the same time, by providing the same information in a PDF format, you ensure that everyone will have the ability to access your information regardless of their computer specifications.

    

Keep an eye out the next time you attend a trade show and let me know if you are seeing the same trend.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

OK - Just Drop It!

     

In the next few weeks I will be attending the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago.   Each year, Internet Retailer puts out its Top 500 Guide, which lists the leading retail web sites.  For the last few years, Amazon.com has captured the top spot and will do so again this year. 

     

With an active customer base of over 76 million customers worldwide, Amazon remains the powerhouse to benchmark against.  With a product selection that is way beyond the initial “bookstore” mentality, inventory carrying costs could be a formidable burden for them.  However, “third party sellers”, reports Andrea James, “account for 30 percent of the units sold on Amazon.”

     

The art of drop shipping product “is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep the goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to wholesalers, who then ship the goods directly to the customer.  The retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price.”

     

By engaging in this method of order fulfillment, retailers are able to increase their assortment of products and thus appeal to a larger base of customers.  Manufacturers are able to sell their products through a larger network of suppliers - and both parties are able to minimize their inventory carrying costs.

      

Entering the world of EDI communication can be daunting and if you want to know the difference between your EDI-850 and EDI-856 communications, Christopher Alexander gives a very good explanation in his recent article titled “What is EDI?”.  Ultimately, you are going to want to have a person dedicated to helping you not only set up your drop ship capabilities, but someone to manage it going forward. 

       

What does Staples, Sears, Kohls and Costco all have in common?  Along with prominent listings on the Top 500 Guide, they all use CommerceHub to help transmit and track their drop ship orders.  Finding the right third-party partner can be the difference between a small boost in sales versus having drop shipping constitute substantial component of your overall merchandising plan.

     

The web is built for companies like Amazon.  Being able to offer a broader selection to a wider audience are the defining characteristics of the Internet.  By leveraging your vendor’s inventory through drop ship processing, you can compete with the #1 retailer on the web.

    

Until next time,

     

Dan

    

     

    

Something To Chew On

   

The old advertisement told us that 4 out of 5 dentists chewed Trident Gum.  What it didn’t tell us, was that the last dentist was busy online updating her MySpace page.  “A recent study by Ipsos Insight found that one in five adults has visited a social networking site,” reports ClubSymantic.  “Some sites, such as Growing Bolder and Eons, cater specifically to people 50 and older.”

   

If your goal is to build a corporate blog that your customers find interesting, the first step is to ask them what’s on their mind.  “Send out a survey”, states Lee Ericson, “asking customers where they go for information about job-related issues.  What are their favorite blogs, online publications, organizations, and associations?”

   

Many times, the conversation may have already started.  If so, specific sites are already generating traffic as the community begins to center around a select number of key influencers. 

   

Key influencers are people in the community whose opinion matters.  Every writer aspires to have Oprah recommend their book to her community of viewers.  The same is possible in your community of customers.  Individuals who have a large network of contacts and whose opinion is held in high regard, can influence the actions of the community.

   

An easy way to find these key members of the community is to use Google Blog Search or Technorati.  With a little research, you can quickly identify highly trafficked blogs that deal with topics of interest to your customers.   The next step is to enter the conversation yourself.  No-one knows your business better than you, and by establishing yourself as an active member of the community, you begin to establish credibility and build an audience.

   

Until next time,

   

Dan

   

   

Are You Talking To Me?

   

That is the question our customers are asking us.  Are we talking to them?  Are we relevant?  Too often we answer that question from yesterday’s perspective.  As we communicate with our customers we follow the traditional path.

    

But the path has changed.  Using yesterday’s marketing techniques is becoming less and less effective.  Certainly there are still a large number of customers who respond to this type of communication.  However, each new customer who enters the market place is a digital native.  They do not respond to the established marketing messages the same way.  They require a dialog.  Sometimes it is a dialog with us and other times it is a dialog with their peer group.  “They don’t care about your ad,” writes Sarah Perez, “they care about what their friends think.”

    

    

    

    

With the dramatic growth in social media, change is required to remain relevant.  Not only are the Generation Y customers utilizing blogs, message boards and RSS feeds, it is becoming more and more common for Boomers to join the online community.

    

So the question remains, are you shifting toward the new media in a meaningful way?  Or are you simply repackaging your message and running the risk of becoming obsolete?

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

    

    

Get Off The Dime

    

As a consumer, you are exposed to massive amounts of advertising every day.  You hear it on the radio as you drive to work.  You see it on billboards, on busses and on T-shirts.  You receive it in the mail, in your email and on your favorite websites.

      

      

Do you remember any of it?

      

      

Odds are that a majority of the marketing materials you see go unnoticed.  In the old economy, this equated to wasted marketing dollars by the companies who were trying to get your attention – trying to change your buying habits.  Some would argue that these costs are still present in the new (ecommerce) economy.

      

      

But I disagree.

      

      

In the old economy it took a substantial investment in time and money to create and place a billboard advertisement.  It is not easy (but it is definitely expensive) creating a television commercial.  Let’s face it, in the old economy you had to be careful and judicious with your marketing dollars.  Now, as marketers transition from the old economy to the new economy they bring with them these same practices.  They believe that taking measured and deliberate steps to create an online marketing campaign (on their site and in their emails) is a “best practice”.

      

      

But I disagree.

     

      

Online, life moves at a different speed.  If the people who view your web messaging don’t “hear it” they remain only consumers to you . . . and potentially become customers to your competition.

      

      

Change your message.  Change it often.  Use your web analytics tools to quickly identify which messages are being heard and which are not.  You now have the opportunity to refine your marketing strategy in real time.  Don’t wait to make a change.  Get off the dime.  Online, you must adapt in order to survive. 

      

      

“Learning is not compulsory . . . neither is survival.”

      

      

Until next time,

      

      

Dan

      

      

      

      

One Clear Voice

    

Being able to establish your place in the market is imperative for survival – but being able to define a brand that resonates with your customers is imperative for success.

    

“Corporate branding is a serious undertaking which entails more skills and activities than just an updated glossy marketing facade with empty jargon” explains Martin Roll from Venture Republic.  Brands must be able to create a “dialogue with an authentic voice.”

    

This ‘authentic voice’ is transmitted through your website.  Not only are you having daily conversations with your customers, but they, in turn, are having conversations about you.  Therefore, your brand messaging must be clear, consistent and relevant. 

    

         

    

    

Keeping a consistent message over time has proven to be difficult for many companies.  The Blake Project, a strategy consulting group, describes successful companies as those businesses that have a “rigorous attention to the brand’s position.”  Over time, however, that attention can wane and companies can stray from having a single, focused brand position.  “The next thing you know, you’re about to come down with a bad case of brand schizophrenia.” 

    

Once your brand lacks focus, you lose your ‘authentic voice’ and then, you lose your customer’s loyalty.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

    

    

Unplugged

Ever been “off the grid”?  Sometimes it’s healthy to get a little R&R from the day to day activity on the net.

This last weekend I had the opportunity to “unplug”. Being the father of two Boy Scouts, I’ve spent a number of nights camping. Today, for instance, I just got back from an annual trip to Galena, IL.

For the last 54 years, on the last full weekend in April, over a thousand Boy Scouts make an annual trip take part in the Grant’s Pilgrimage Parade.  My kids have been in the parade a number of times and they have always had a great time.

While I had planned on blogging about building a powerful online brand, I’ve run out of time - perhaps next week.   Instead, I’ve seen the stars on a cold clear night, heard a wild turkey in the pre-dawn hours and eaten food cooked over an open fire . . . food prepared by boys that have been playing in the mud and haven’t properly washed their hands (this is why Moms don’t come on Boy Scout campouts).

Until next time,

Dan

Spreading The Word - Corporate Blogging

It is becoming more apparent that in order to manage the brand, companies need to be actively involved in social networking.  People are out on the net and they are talking about you.  The trick is to get your advocates (customers) talking about you.

   

One way to help facilitate this type of discussion is to start a corporate blog.  “More and more companies”, writes Mitch Joel, “are looking at the power of corporate blogs”.  In Joel’s latest post, he does a great job outlining the seven basic types of corporate blogs: 

   

·        Industry

·        Idea Storm

·        Individual

·        CEO

·        Departmental

·        Parody

·        Customer Service

   

But, as with anything you do, even this type of customer contact needs to serve a purpose.  If your readers (customers) don’t find your blog interesting, what good have you done?

    

Did you see Jake McGee’s post about the Graco blog?  In this post he outlined several key components of a successful corporate blog.  First and foremost it must have good content.  “The Graco blogging team clearly understands that they’re here to connect with parents,” writes McGee, “and what better way than to talk about parenting?”  Along with the content, the Graco blog  makes it easy for customers to interact and become involved in the conversation.  They keep the content fresh by enlisting a number of bloggers rather than relying upon a single individual.

    

Spreading the work load among several people certainly has its advantages.  However you need to enlist volunteers rather than draftees.  Otherwise you run the risk of being exposed as shown in this news excerpt from Barely Political.

    

    

    

         

Until next time,

    

Dan