Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Another from my working life...
By Michelle Eichner and Len Shneyder
Social networks have evolved to fill every societal niche. There are sites dedicated to business networking like LinkedIn, special interests such as Vampirefreaks.com and monolithic sites like MySpace that have become hubs of innovation with features such as artist pages that provide struggling musicians a fast and easy means to promote their talents.
Why so much buzz about social networks? In a recent Reuters article, MySpace was quoted as having 110 million users and Facebook boasted 67 million active users.
It’s not just about size, though – social networks have mastered the art of engagement as evidenced by enviable stats such as 20-plus visits per month, 500-plus viewed pages per visitor and 200-plus minutes per visitor per month.
Mobile? You’d think these fat cats would be resting on their laurels, but they’re not ...
While most businesses have yet to embrace an increasingly mobile audience, social networking sites are setting the trend.
With the exception of Friendster, the majority of industry leading social networking sites, including Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn (in beta), Twitter and even a Russian site called Vkontake, have firmly planted themselves as mobile-ready by creating light, sleek and relevant versions of their sites for mobile devices.
One of the challenges in mobilizing your site is adapting your content to an extremely limited environment – both in size and in functionality.
This requires trade-offs between what you want to promote to consumers and what will compel them to use your site from their smartphone.
In the case of most social networking sites, the mobile landing page tends to be the friend update section, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that people are using social networking sites as a means of keeping track of what their friends are doing.
Instead of bombarding mobile users with promotions, social networks’ mobile sites have honed-in on the core services and functions that their customers are most likely to need or want when on-the-go.
The cue we can take from the social networking world is that regardless of how popular you already are or aren’t, providing easy access via any means a user might possibly want is a critical key to retaining and growing your user base in the 21st century.
While the rest of us are repeating the mantra of targeting the right person, at the right place, at the right time, social networking sites recognize that to do so successfully today means cross-platform capabilities.
It’s not only about reaching consumers when they are sitting in front of their computer but also when they are standing at a subway stop, walking down the street or sitting on top of a mountain with their smartphone in hand.
Don’t dig social networking sites or need another reason to create a mobile-ready site? Take a look around you the next time you’re waiting for your flight: How many people have a smartphone in hand?
Smartphones are not just the mainstay of busy travelers; they are a hot-ticket item amongst consumers of all generations. The future is here: mobilize with it.
Michelle Eichner is co-founder and vice president of client services for Pivotal Veracity, a Scottsdale, AZ-based deliverability consultancy and service provider.
Len Shneyder is director of partner relations and industry communications at Pivotal Veracity.
Social networks have evolved to fill every societal niche. There are sites dedicated to business networking like LinkedIn, special interests such as Vampirefreaks.com and monolithic sites like MySpace that have become hubs of innovation with features such as artist pages that provide struggling musicians a fast and easy means to promote their talents.
Why so much buzz about social networks? In a recent Reuters article, MySpace was quoted as having 110 million users and Facebook boasted 67 million active users.
It’s not just about size, though – social networks have mastered the art of engagement as evidenced by enviable stats such as 20-plus visits per month, 500-plus viewed pages per visitor and 200-plus minutes per visitor per month.
Mobile? You’d think these fat cats would be resting on their laurels, but they’re not ...
While most businesses have yet to embrace an increasingly mobile audience, social networking sites are setting the trend.
With the exception of Friendster, the majority of industry leading social networking sites, including Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn (in beta), Twitter and even a Russian site called Vkontake, have firmly planted themselves as mobile-ready by creating light, sleek and relevant versions of their sites for mobile devices.
One of the challenges in mobilizing your site is adapting your content to an extremely limited environment – both in size and in functionality.
This requires trade-offs between what you want to promote to consumers and what will compel them to use your site from their smartphone.
In the case of most social networking sites, the mobile landing page tends to be the friend update section, which makes a lot of sense when you consider that people are using social networking sites as a means of keeping track of what their friends are doing.
Instead of bombarding mobile users with promotions, social networks’ mobile sites have honed-in on the core services and functions that their customers are most likely to need or want when on-the-go.
The cue we can take from the social networking world is that regardless of how popular you already are or aren’t, providing easy access via any means a user might possibly want is a critical key to retaining and growing your user base in the 21st century.
While the rest of us are repeating the mantra of targeting the right person, at the right place, at the right time, social networking sites recognize that to do so successfully today means cross-platform capabilities.
It’s not only about reaching consumers when they are sitting in front of their computer but also when they are standing at a subway stop, walking down the street or sitting on top of a mountain with their smartphone in hand.
Don’t dig social networking sites or need another reason to create a mobile-ready site? Take a look around you the next time you’re waiting for your flight: How many people have a smartphone in hand?
Smartphones are not just the mainstay of busy travelers; they are a hot-ticket item amongst consumers of all generations. The future is here: mobilize with it.
Michelle Eichner is co-founder and vice president of client services for Pivotal Veracity, a Scottsdale, AZ-based deliverability consultancy and service provider.
Len Shneyder is director of partner relations and industry communications at Pivotal Veracity.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
From my working life...
When less equals More
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM , BY MICHELLE EICHNER AND LEN SHNEYDER
Change how you're acquiring customers
The goals of those involved in acquisition are often at odds with today's e-mail reality. When success is measured on the number of new registrants and cost per registrant, marketers often rely on tactics that pose substantial risks to the health and well being of core customer communications. This is because they are likely to be adding names that have no real interest in receiving your ongoing e-mails.
Again, more is not better! One such tactic is incentive-based — the heavy use of promotions and sweepstakes to quickly and inexpensively acquire new names for your database. Folks sign up for the sweepstakes and then immediately unsubscribe or, worse yet, complain tht you are spamming them. Remember, at ISPs such as AOL if a tiny fraction of your customers complain you are spamming them, you risk having all your mail blocked (yes — that means all mail — including the mail to your active and engaged customers!).
Another tactic is what we call the “hidden-agenda method.” You may make a compelling benefit such as access to key information on your Website contingent, upon the person providing you their e-mail address.
In many cases, the customer may want access to your site, but has no interest in ongoing e-mails — so to accomplish this, he or she provides a fake address. As a result, your bad-address rate spikes for newly acquired names, and you once again risk having all mail blocked.
E-mail appends, unqualified co-registration programs, the list goes on — but the risks to your good mailing reputation cannot be ignored and should be measured. Only then can the potential impact be quantified and fully understood. Today, clarity is king. More names is definitively not better, and you should always provide a clear, unencumbered, and conspicuous opt-in to your ongoing e-mail communications.
Change what you're sending your customers
Not every customer should get the exact same thing. This becomes even more true over the course of their relationship with you. Your customers are unique individuals; providing relevant and personalized content will inspire and motivate them to visit your site and hopefully purchase your products and services.
Leverage the power of e-mail! Affordable e-mail technology allows you to provide a truly one-to-one message based on three main data sources: who they are (age, gender, geographic location, job type etc.), what they want (stated preferences at e-mail capture) and what they do (interests you ascertain by tracking what they click on — including e-mail and Web).
But too little consideration is given to the fact that your customers' interests evolve over time. The end result is that your customers, bored with your content and annoyed by the frequency of your mailings, will unsubscribe or report your e-mail as spam. Therefore, it is critical that you do not forget to revisit your segmentation strategy continuously over the course of the customer lifecycle.
Fine tune the frequency of your communications
Not every customer needs — or wants — to get an e-mail every single time you send one out. Mail smarter and to the right people. As we've discussed, there's an inherent danger in sending too much mail. Do not overestimate your customers' appetite for your e-mails — you don't want to burn out the new subscribers and you don't want to anger older ones who may have forgotten how or why they wound up on your list.
Sending friendly and gentle reminders requesting profile updates, and those such as “We haven't heard from you in a while, would you like to remain on our list?” are excellent tactics and provide a personal touch.
Another practical approach: Do not mail everyone at the same time. Send your most active names first and allow those to deliver. Then create a separate and relevant e-mail to your least active names and send that at least a full day after you've delivered your bread and butter. This may also have an added benefit of smoothing Web traffic and fulfillment.
And last but not least, remember: Although every name on your list represents incremental revenue, those names just as easily represent exponentially greater amounts of lost revenue because they can impact the delivery of your entire campaign. This is why less is truly more when it comes to e-mail marketing.
Michelle Eichner is chief operating officer/vice president of client development and Len Shneyder is director of partner relations and industry communications for Pivotal Veracity, an e-mail deliverability service provider.
Between a rock and a hard place
A client e-mails all opt-in names weekly (excluding those who have unsubscribed, bounced, or generated a spam complaint). In late 2006, Comcast blocked its IPs, preventing the client from being able to deliver any e-mail to Comcast. We contacted Comcast to ask why the client's e-mails were being blocked, and learned Comcast's filter (Brightmail) reported X% of this client's mail as spam. Based on a request from us, Comcast removed the block and the client continued mailing without changing its practices.
Business continued as usual, but so did the specter of less equals more. The client mailed its entire house file again and triggered Comcast's filters again. We again had the block lifted. But this quickly became less than ideal for the mailer, Pivotal Veracity, and Comcast; something had to be done.
The mailer's first tactic was to e-mail only subscribers with any post-signup activity, such as clicks or purchases, regardless of how long ago. Unfortunately, this also resulted in Comcast blocking the mail as in previous campaigns. The implication: Just because someone was engaged at one time does not mean they are still engaged and, as many folks do, they used the report-as-spam button to get off the list.
Rather desperate now, the mailer decided to test e-mailing only to Comcast addresses that had made a purchase; a dramatic measure but one with dramatic results. Since employing a Comcast mail strategy that includes buyers only, this client has received consistent 100% inbox delivery.
Older, inactive users were complaining, which caused the entire e-mail to be blocked by Comcast. Although the inactive names as a segment were producing incremental revenue as a small fraction purchased, the effect of sending e-mails to these users actually resulted in a net loss of revenue because it affected the ability to mail any e-mails to Comcast.
By taking proactive measures, the client has been able to successfully deliver to the inbox across all subsequent campaigns.
— ME/LS
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM , BY MICHELLE EICHNER AND LEN SHNEYDER
Change how you're acquiring customers
The goals of those involved in acquisition are often at odds with today's e-mail reality. When success is measured on the number of new registrants and cost per registrant, marketers often rely on tactics that pose substantial risks to the health and well being of core customer communications. This is because they are likely to be adding names that have no real interest in receiving your ongoing e-mails.
Again, more is not better! One such tactic is incentive-based — the heavy use of promotions and sweepstakes to quickly and inexpensively acquire new names for your database. Folks sign up for the sweepstakes and then immediately unsubscribe or, worse yet, complain tht you are spamming them. Remember, at ISPs such as AOL if a tiny fraction of your customers complain you are spamming them, you risk having all your mail blocked (yes — that means all mail — including the mail to your active and engaged customers!).
Another tactic is what we call the “hidden-agenda method.” You may make a compelling benefit such as access to key information on your Website contingent, upon the person providing you their e-mail address.
In many cases, the customer may want access to your site, but has no interest in ongoing e-mails — so to accomplish this, he or she provides a fake address. As a result, your bad-address rate spikes for newly acquired names, and you once again risk having all mail blocked.
E-mail appends, unqualified co-registration programs, the list goes on — but the risks to your good mailing reputation cannot be ignored and should be measured. Only then can the potential impact be quantified and fully understood. Today, clarity is king. More names is definitively not better, and you should always provide a clear, unencumbered, and conspicuous opt-in to your ongoing e-mail communications.
Change what you're sending your customers
Not every customer should get the exact same thing. This becomes even more true over the course of their relationship with you. Your customers are unique individuals; providing relevant and personalized content will inspire and motivate them to visit your site and hopefully purchase your products and services.
Leverage the power of e-mail! Affordable e-mail technology allows you to provide a truly one-to-one message based on three main data sources: who they are (age, gender, geographic location, job type etc.), what they want (stated preferences at e-mail capture) and what they do (interests you ascertain by tracking what they click on — including e-mail and Web).
But too little consideration is given to the fact that your customers' interests evolve over time. The end result is that your customers, bored with your content and annoyed by the frequency of your mailings, will unsubscribe or report your e-mail as spam. Therefore, it is critical that you do not forget to revisit your segmentation strategy continuously over the course of the customer lifecycle.
Fine tune the frequency of your communications
Not every customer needs — or wants — to get an e-mail every single time you send one out. Mail smarter and to the right people. As we've discussed, there's an inherent danger in sending too much mail. Do not overestimate your customers' appetite for your e-mails — you don't want to burn out the new subscribers and you don't want to anger older ones who may have forgotten how or why they wound up on your list.
Sending friendly and gentle reminders requesting profile updates, and those such as “We haven't heard from you in a while, would you like to remain on our list?” are excellent tactics and provide a personal touch.
Another practical approach: Do not mail everyone at the same time. Send your most active names first and allow those to deliver. Then create a separate and relevant e-mail to your least active names and send that at least a full day after you've delivered your bread and butter. This may also have an added benefit of smoothing Web traffic and fulfillment.
And last but not least, remember: Although every name on your list represents incremental revenue, those names just as easily represent exponentially greater amounts of lost revenue because they can impact the delivery of your entire campaign. This is why less is truly more when it comes to e-mail marketing.
Michelle Eichner is chief operating officer/vice president of client development and Len Shneyder is director of partner relations and industry communications for Pivotal Veracity, an e-mail deliverability service provider.
Between a rock and a hard place
A client e-mails all opt-in names weekly (excluding those who have unsubscribed, bounced, or generated a spam complaint). In late 2006, Comcast blocked its IPs, preventing the client from being able to deliver any e-mail to Comcast. We contacted Comcast to ask why the client's e-mails were being blocked, and learned Comcast's filter (Brightmail) reported X% of this client's mail as spam. Based on a request from us, Comcast removed the block and the client continued mailing without changing its practices.
Business continued as usual, but so did the specter of less equals more. The client mailed its entire house file again and triggered Comcast's filters again. We again had the block lifted. But this quickly became less than ideal for the mailer, Pivotal Veracity, and Comcast; something had to be done.
The mailer's first tactic was to e-mail only subscribers with any post-signup activity, such as clicks or purchases, regardless of how long ago. Unfortunately, this also resulted in Comcast blocking the mail as in previous campaigns. The implication: Just because someone was engaged at one time does not mean they are still engaged and, as many folks do, they used the report-as-spam button to get off the list.
Rather desperate now, the mailer decided to test e-mailing only to Comcast addresses that had made a purchase; a dramatic measure but one with dramatic results. Since employing a Comcast mail strategy that includes buyers only, this client has received consistent 100% inbox delivery.
Older, inactive users were complaining, which caused the entire e-mail to be blocked by Comcast. Although the inactive names as a segment were producing incremental revenue as a small fraction purchased, the effect of sending e-mails to these users actually resulted in a net loss of revenue because it affected the ability to mail any e-mails to Comcast.
By taking proactive measures, the client has been able to successfully deliver to the inbox across all subsequent campaigns.
— ME/LS
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