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

    

    

    

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

      

      

      

      

Return to Sender

After my last blog post ( How High Can You Bounce? ), I had a couple of people comment on the difference between a Landing Page Bounce and an Email Bounce. 

    

An email bounce is when your outbound marketing message is returned undeliverable.  The Email Experience Council (EEC) explains that “emails can bounce for more than 30 reasons:  the email address is incorrect or has been closed; the recipient’s mailbox is full, the mail server is down, or the system detects spam or offensive content.”

    

All of these “30 reasons” fall into two categories – a hard bounce and a soft bounce.  “A hard bounce” explains Brian Anderson, Director of Web Marketing for Staples’ Quill.com business division, “can be defined as anything to the right of the [at] sign and a soft bounce is to the left of the [at] sign.” 

    

In other words, a hard bounce is undeliverable due to an incorrect address or a mail box that no longer exists.    A soft bounce is a temporary problem usually due to either the mail server being down or the mail box being full.  Either way, you can resend a soft bounce but should not resend a hard bounce. 

    

Reagan Taylor, email marketing consultant, gives some guidance on how to address bounces and other email issues as a regular contributor to Sundeep Kapur’s blog, Email Yogi.  She has some good advice – you should check it out. 

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

    

Driving Sales In Our Own Backyard

“The Internet”, says Kerry Miller, “has made it easier for even the smallest companies to go global by reaching new markets all over the world. But many companies continue to overlook the opportunities that the Web creates right in their own backyards.”

    

Last week, my blog post (¿Cómo se escribe “more sales”?) dealt with the opportunities available to web sites that choose to market to the Hispanic community.  A recent report from The Media Audit, a Houston based media survey firm, stated that the number of Hispanics shopping online has moved from only 27% five years ago, to over 41% today.  In fact, their data shows that over 23% of these shoppers make five or more purchases in a year and over 12% of them make an average of one purchase per month.

    

Knowing that Hispanics are the fastest growing group in the U.S. and that their online penetration is quickly increasing, you would think more companies would refine their messaging to target this group.  However, a study done last year by Common Sense Advisory, a Massachusetts based research firm, found that of 102 top U.S. retail web sites, only 18 of them contained Spanish-language content.  When contacted in Spanish regarding customer service issues, only half of these 18 sites responded in the same language.

    

If you’re concerned about your companies ability to handle translating your entire site into Spanish, don’t worry.  As long as you set appropriate expectations with these customers, you can translate your customer service pages and select emails first.  As your Spanish speaking customer base grows, you can increase the investment. 

    

You should take advantage of the fact that this segment of potential customers is extremely brand loyal and you have the opportunity to distinguish yourself from your competition by marketing to them in a culturally relevant way.  With a small investment in translation services and a select group of bi-lingual customer service representatives, you can establish yourself as the company of choice.

    

Until next time,

    

Dan

    

    

¿Cómo se escribe “more sales”?

In a troubled economy, we are all searching for additional sales opportunities.  As it turns out, there may be a new market closer to you than you realize.  The Hispanic population is the fastest growing segment in the country.  For those companies who are prepared to market to these customers, new sales opportunities abound.

    

In a recent blog post, Oren Harari covered the topic of how the global economy is effecting us here in the States.  While there is certainly a lot of opportunity for us outside our borders, a majority of companies have yet to realize the sales potential of focusing on this market segment here at home.

    

A number of companies are eager to help you translate your web site into Spanish.  One such Company is Language Line Services.  Language Line recently merged with Lingo Systems.  The company offers phone and video based services, document translation and face-to-face interpretation.

    

  For your own personal growth, you may want to learn the language yourself.  I took a year of Spanish in High School and “kick” myself for never having really studied the language.  Now I am going back to school to take a few classes from my local community college (who knew that after 15 years after completing my Master’s I would again find myself taking night classes).  If you are thinking about brushing up on your Spanish you may want to try Coffee Break Spanish.  It’s available as a free podcast on iTunes.  You should check it out.

    

Until next time – hasta pronto!

    

Dan

The Next Wave

Over the past year, I’ve come to depend on my Motorola Q.    Previous to that, I had a BlackBerry that allowed me to keep tabs on my email.  As all of you know, we have become inundated with emails.  Ten years ago we were able to run successful businesses with weekly meetings and the occasional memo.  Now I seem to always be in meetings and always reading emails.

    

    

Mobile devices such as the Motorola Q or the BlackBerry Curve are very cool and allow you to access the internet, view maps and keep on top of your emails.  I was speaking with a friend the other day who said he used to believe the BlackBerry was “top of the line” until he got his iPhone.  Leave it to Apple to change the world again.

    

    

The point is this . . . the world is changing – again.  Remember back in the late ‘90s when you were reading articles about Amazon and hearing people question if that business model would really work?  Guess what – it does.

    

    

We have talked before about how Yahoo! is building an “open environment”.  These changes, in both software and hardware, are the beginning of the next revolution. The question is, what are you doing to prepare your website for these opportunities? Will you take advantage of this change or will you miss the next wave?

    

    

Until next time,

    

    

Dan

    

    

Know Your Customer

The old adage about knowing your audience is especially true when dealing with your current customers.     After you have taken the steps (and investment) to develop a relationship with your customers, you need to ensure that you are maximizing it – both from your perspective and from your customer’s perspective.

   

It’s true that identifying the correct metrics is crucial to measuring your success, but identifying what motivates your customers is crucial to your ongoing success.     Over the years I’ve heard almost everyone talk about one-to-one marketing, but I’ve rarely seen it.     While true one-to-one is difficult to achieve in the consumer (B2C) marketplace, the opportunity to deliver a tighter, more relevant experience is very possible.

   

By evaluating your customer’s order history, you can begin to distinguish patterns that separate them into various buyer types.  We are all familiar with measuring RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) from a print perspective, but how can we group web customers in such a way that we can strengthen our relationship with them?     Two different ways to do this is to (1) focus on where the customer is in their lifecycle, and (2) focus on the customer’s product preferences.

   

By focusing on the customer’s lifecycle, you can modify your communication with them as they move from Try-er to Buyer .     You will also change your message as you see them begin to drop off your active customer base.     The earlier you can identify their decrease in activity and re-activate them the more successful you will be.

   

You will also need to adjust your messaging by your customer’s preferences.     Most websites offer a variety of products: sometimes it is content and therefore, focused on selling clicks or page views, while other times it is merchandise and therefore focused on ecommerce sales.     Ultimately, we are all trying to extend the customer’s experience by making our content more relevant.     By understanding what motivates our customers and grouping them accordingly, we can identify product or content opportunities that the customer will be more likely to find relevant and compelling.

   

The idea of “same like you”, where you identify products or content that other similar customers found interesting, is a successful way to expand the customer’s share of wallet with your website.

   

Unless you are selling muumuus, one size does not fit all.     Knowing that, how can you expect your marketing message to be relevant to your entire customer base.     Understanding when and why your customers are interacting with your website is the first step in developing this relevant marketing message.     How are you categorizing your customers and how are you adjusting your messaging?

   

Until next time,

   

Dan

   

   

An Ounce of Prevention for Website Design

It seems to me that there are two different types of Website Usability that a company can employ. The first is to capture customer feedback (both potential customer and current customer) and incorporate it into your site’s design. The second is to build your site without this input and obtain usability feedback via your customer’s spending . . . or lack thereof.

    

    

I’m amazed at the number of times I hear of websites making changes without getting any substantial input from customers. Leveraging information obtained from outside sources is easy to do if you have sufficient funds to incorporate data from companies such as Usability Sciences, BizRate, or Omniture.  However, if you are a small company and can’t afford these services, at a minimum you need to enlist help from current customers through email surveys. You will be surprised to learn how many customers will accept the offer to provide feedback to a well run (home grown) survey program.

    

    

Ultimately you will receive the customer’s opinion of your website design. If they find it difficult to navigate, or your internal search results are not helpful, your customers will go elsewhere. Remember, your current customers are your competitor’s prospects.

    

    

Until next time,

    

    

Dan

    

    

Learning is Not Compulsory

I’m reading Seth Godin’s new book, Meatball Sundae, and I am seeing some similar themes as outlined in Oren Harrari’s  book, Break from the Pack.  Both illustrate that in the new marketplace, you must  not  only differentiate your offering, you must also differentiate the delivery of your message. 

    

    

As the customer becomes bombarded with messages through email, social media and a multitude of websites, you need to generate creative marketing messages in order to stand out.  Godin explains that “innovations have not only created new ways to spread ideas, but have also made some of the old ways far less effective.”

    

    

As we try to adjust our message to be relevant in this changing medium, Harari warns that we run the risk of simply being a “me too” and fail to truly differentiate ourselves in not only how we promote our message, but also in the substance of what we have to offer.  He believes that delivering both good service and good products is not enough. 

    

    

The business environment today is one of websites and drop-ship (3^rd party logistics) networks.  The guy down the street, who runs a business out of his basement, is competing with the big players.  From the customer’s point of view, they can’t tell a difference.  If the guy down the street has a sister-in-law or cousin who is a website designer, your company (as it lumbers through its monthly “go-to-market” process) could actually be at a distinct disadvantage.

    

    

Who doesn’t offer Free Shipping? 

 

         

         

Who doesn’t deliver in 2-3 working days (if not next day)? 

 

    

         

      

    

Who doesn’t claim to have a 100% Guarantee?

      

   

    

      

Web 2.0

    

    

Every time I read someone’s blog or listen to a webinar, I hear of the importance of driving the web 2.0 experience.  As web merchants, not only do we struggle to keep the product data accurate and meaningful, create promotions that resonate with our customers and ensure the day-to-day activities of our websites are under control, now we must provide a fuller, richer customer experience.

    

    

Streaming media, customer reviews and blogs are quickly changing from being differentiators to simply being the cost of doing business.  In the last five years, we have stopped being “broad-line retailers” and started being “long-tail e-tailers”.  Now we must take the same steps with our marketing message. In order to compete, we must embrace the emerging social and rich media in order to ensure our message is heard.

    

    

The well known quality guru, W. Edwards Deming, once said "Learning is not compulsory . . . neither is survival."  What survival techniques are you learning in order to compete in today's Web 2.0 environment?

    

      

Until next time,

    

    

Dan

Keeping Up with the Competition

It appears that everyone had a great Cyber Monday.  ComScore reports that online sales jumped 21% over prior year.  It sounds like the soft economy is not hampering the online sales this Holiday season.  However, the question we should be asking ourselves is “how well did our competitors do?”.

    

    

A great way to keep track of your competition is to use Alexa.  This web site allows you to view the traffic generated by any website.  By using this site, you can track your competitors over time.  Here I’m taking a look at the leaders of the Office Supply category and it appears that Staples is continuing to win.

         

    

Everyone is putting their best marketing efforts out there.  I’ve seen two different offers from Amazon recently.  The first was to promote their next day shipping capabilities by offering a $5 Instant Savings when you selected Free Next Day Shipping.  While this seems it would be a very expensive promotion, this is the second time I have seen them offer this.  Therefore, you would have to assume that this is effective for them.

      

The second offer from Amazon was to leverage the excitement over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Offers and to stretch them over the following week. They sent out an email allowing prospective customers to vote on a series of offers and then followed up with the customers as these items went on sale.

   

    

As we move through December, we can track our competitors by following their emails and home page promotions and then measuring their success through Alexa.com.  But the truth is, the 4th quarter has been planned and put into place months ago.  The next step is to take these learnings and weave them into our Spring and Summer planning.  We all know that Amazon continues to set the pace in both traffic and sales.  By taking a look at their promotional offers and cadence, we can benchmark these against our own plans and measure the corresponding success in the coming quarters.

    

    

Until next time,

    

    

Dan

    

Jump in the Deep End

Running a successful business can be a “sink or swim” proposition.  Once you have “jumped in the deep end” you have to create enough promotional excitement to get customers to enter your site (store).  Just because they visit your site does not mean they are going to make a purchase.  A merchant’s job is not only selecting the right products and building a strong assortment, in the end, it is all about driving top line sales dollars.

 

Unless you are entering a brand new category, the first step in understanding your business model is to review the history.  Past successful (and unsuccessful) campaigns will show exactly what your customers want from you.  By understanding margin percentages and sales velocities of your products, you can reconstruct the financial model that your company needs to meet its’ budgeted targets.

 

While the marketer in you will be focused on driving people to the store through building a promotional cadence that showcases your compelling offers, the merchant in you will determine which items receive prominent placement on your web site and/or printed material.  By this time you have already completed the initial negotiations with your vendors and have obtained additional marketing funds from them to enable a win-win situation for selling their products on your site.  You should have also done enough competitive shopping to identify those products that have an elastic demand curve and those that have an inelastic demand curve.  In other words, some items react negatively to price increases (you must match the market) while other items do not (you can increase prices to stretch your margin results).

 

At this point, you may be able to envision your Econ I teacher from your college days.  If so, I’m putting you to sleep – sorry about that.  But here is the exciting part.  Prices have been set and the promotions put into place.  As customers come to your site and begin purchasing, you will begin to identify your favorite items.  Which products are your favorites?  The items that sell the most. 

 

Keep Your Head Above Water

 

All good merchants are both “left brain” and “right brain”.  While you need to be able to identify changing trends in the marketplace (in order to adjust your product assortment), you also must understand the sales information coming from your data warehouse.  Your margin rate will be pulled up or down (usually down) by the weighted average effect of your sales efforts.

 

This is why it is important to understand the past sales history.  Your margin rate will not be calculated on a straight average across all your products.  Your “loss leaders” and “profit drivers” sell at different rates per order.  Therefore, you must take into account the sales mix across your product assortment.

   

The next step is to determine how you want to handle the promotional markdowns from your marketing efforts.  This decision may be driven by the capabilities of your finance team.  While the effect of some promotions may easily be tied to the exact products that they drive, a number of promotions must be applied across either specific customer groups, product categories, or the entire business. 

Understanding how these promotions drive your business will enable you to make the necessary changes to your merchandising plan.

 

In the end, you can't be worried about getting all wet.  Allow your creative side to generate the excitement needed to draw customers to your site, while enabling your analytical side to manage your margin.  By understanding these metrics, you can drive the needed sales and margin results to ensure your success.

 

Until next time,

 

Dan

Too Much ( or ) Too Little

Take a look at 3 or 4 of your favorite sites. When you look at their home page or emails, do they appear busy, noisy or too crowded?  I recently had the opportunity to give my two cents on this phenomena at the September Shop.org event in Las Vegas.  Lauren Freedman invited me to be a speaker on her Merchandising for Conversion panel (check out Lauren's web site at www.e-tailing.com).

During my presentation, I spoke about how at Quill.com we have found that a tighter promotional message (fewer ad cells on our home page and in our emails) have lead to higher sales results - both overall as well as within the categories that did not receive exposure.

I know I'm not alone.  After my presentation I had several other Web Merchants and e-Marketers come up to me and express similar concerns about trying to "push" too much content onto these key pieces of marketing real estate.

The Flip Side

It's strange that we can struggle with some areas of the site being over-crowded while we lack enough substance on the interior pages.  Too often the creative energy on these interior pages fail to match the same level as found on the home page.  Unfortunately, as we all know, the home page is not the only landing page on the site.  All too often customers come to our sites and never see the home page due to a less than compelling experience on the landing page (one page view and then they leave).  The lack of promotional excitement on these interior pages is compounded by the fact that the actual "sales experience" happens on the SKU page.

The Solution

Try testing a tighter promotional message against the standard bombardment of offers found in your normal email.  From my experience, I have found that the key metrics will almost always point to the more focused messaging format - Less can be better.

To solve the problem of not enough content and/or promotional excitement on your interior pages, you may simply have to apply the right medicine.  A friend recently forwarded a link that may (or may not) hold the answer.  Check out www.WhoNeedsDesigners.com - it may take the sales pitch a few minutes to load but I think you will find it informative.

Until next time,

Dan