An interesting piece popped up in a recent edition of the New York Times that makes you realize just how different the marketing universe has become thanks to interactive web technology. It seems that Tropicana, the fine purveyor of orange juice, has scrapped its latest re-branding effort and will bring back their old packaging in the near future. I see this as a smart move for Tropicana – a solid way to gain a reputation as a company that listens to its loyal customers.

In the good old days, marketing agencies would hand out new branding ideas and even if consumers didn’t like the changes, they would eventually accept them. With a few notable exceptions (New Coke is the classic example), it used to be difficult for consumers to make a fuss about their displeasure with corporate marketing. But in the brave new world of Web 2.0, one customer’s voice can be heard fairly easily. And in some cases, that one voice can lead to an avalanche of public opinion over the web. As the Times piece states:

Such attention is becoming increasingly common as interactive technologies enable consumers to rapidly convey opinions to marketers.

“You used to wait to go to the water cooler or a cocktail party to talk over something,” said Richard Laermer, chief executive at RLM Public Relations in New York.

“Now, every minute is a cocktail party,” he added. “You write an e-mail and in an hour, you’ve got a fan base agreeing with you.”

…Or disagreeing with you, as the case may be.

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A new report available today from Hitwise reveals that 11% of all upstream traffic to the top 500 retail websites during the 2008 Holiday season came from email.

The clickstream data shows that the triumvirate of search (30%), other Retail 500 websites (15%), and email represented more than 50% of all upstream holiday web visits to the nation’s top e-commerce sites. So what can we take away from this information? For starters, it means that SEO continues to be a big deal for leading retailers worldwide, and rightfully so. Secondly, this data indicates to me that when people know which product (i.e. a Nintendo Wii) or category of products (a video game system) they are looking for, their first destination will be the search engine. From there, they will be taken to a retailer’s e-commerce site, which may inspire them to compare offers with other e-commerce sites.

But what if the customer doesn’t know what he/she is looking for?

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If a customer walked into your store and told you that of the thousands of stores they could have visited, they chose yours – and they liked it so much that they wanted you to contact them personally on a regular basis with updates and information – what would you say? 

Recently I signed up at a series of multi-channel retailers that you would find in most malls across America to find out exactly how businesses are treating their newest prospects and customers.

Here’s a breakdown of the results:

• Sent email immediately 60%
• Sent email within 1 day 60%
• Sent email within 5 days 80%
• Sent email within 7 days 100%

Sending a triggered welcome email quickly is a perfect way to acknowledge your customers interest and get the relationship off to the right start while your business is top of mind.

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The question about whether double opt-in (confirmed consent) is an email best practice has been asked for the last 10 years.

In Bill McCloskey’s recent ClickZ article he takes the strong position that double opt-in consent is no longer a best practice and should be discarded. In my view, McCloskey is correct – double opt-in will not facilitate list growth.

At this point in time, individuals are largely familiar with the traditional single opt-in email sign-up process. Double opt-in requires more effort from the person who already completed the email sign-up process, which in some cases, can be a time consuming affair to begin with. For example, many registration forms (especially for sites handling sensitive personal information) now require the customer to repeat letters and numbers (CAPTCHA forms) for security reasons.

If your sign-up process is clear and straightforward, there is no need to require an individual to work even harder to join your list. Read More »

The social networking site Facebook recently scrambled to react to negative user feedback arising from recent changes to its term of service. The most telling lesson from this latest controversy is how quickly Facebook has responded to user concerns and how welcome this response has been to the aggrieved users, privacy advocates and the media.

Every emailer gets some complaint feedback from recipients, often routed through direct ISP ‘feedback loops’ where users press the ‘spam’ or ‘junk’ button. While studies have shown that a portion of this feedback may be ‘false positive’ mistakes, the substantial majority are clearly negative feedback from aggrieved users.  Unfortunately, few email marketers closely track these complaint percentages or use this data to quickly respond to trends/spikes in complaints. 

The message here is simple; every email marketer can quickly respond to increases in complaint feedback.  The reasons for complaint increases are usually very clear, and often tied to subscriber acquisition practices. Email is the greatest testing vehicle ever created, and complaint reduction can be tested along the same lines as subject lines. However, if the complaint reasons or testing processes don’t seem clear, then comment here and I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.  

It took 64,000 complaints for Facebook to pay heed to their users.  After doing so, their users are now further endeared to them.  How much negative feedback do you need to before you re-examine your privacy practices? 

Using e-mail and your website for online survey/sweepstakes can be timely and effective. When done well, it’s a win/win for you and your customer. In the last week I’ve received survey emails from Simon Pearce, Talbots and Key Bank, and as I’ve gone through them, I’ve had some time to reflect on what makes an effective survey. 

A survey is an offer of value that should be consistent with your brand and provide a positive customer experience.  Online surveys are great directional indicators, particularly in these tough times.  But don’t over-interpret results, and remember that respondents represent a particular type of customer and are not likely to be a random group. In other words, use results with caution.

Let’s take a look at some of these survey programs in more detail:

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This week, Comedy Central adds some old-school creative flavor to their promotional messages for Important Things With Demetri Martin, a new hipster comedy show slated to precede The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday nights. I make no apologies for being a huge Comedy Central fan, and this email pretty much embodies that spirit.

Simply put, this could be perhaps the greatest call-to-action in the history of email marketing. After all, who needs graphic arrows, underlined text, or colorful buttons when you could have an actual human being gesturing towards a clickable area with a classroom pointer? Jackpot! Even better, it takes you to a streaming video landing page just as the image leads you to believe.

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