Recently I received a legitimate and noteworthy series of emails from Bank of America. Their first email introduced updates to their alert emails so that their customers could expect what to look for. The new features include a new look, personalization, a security checkpoint, alert information and more. I am sure Bank of America has been dealing with spoofed emails for some time now, so hopefully these changes will reduce security headaches and help stop the spammers.

The first educational email from Bank of America draws attention to the forthcoming  changes:

The second educational email from B-of-A explains the new features in more detail:

This is a strong campaign, especially for a company dealing with sensitive customer information like B-of-A. It is critical for financial institutions to set expectations for their customers so that the customers themselves are aware of what they are receiving, and can therefore recognize unauthorized emails more easily.

What do you think about the changes Bank of America has made? Do you think an email redesign will slow down the spammers? What else should businesses do to stop spammers? Share your thoughts!

The conversation went like this:

Salesperson: Here is the size 11 you had asked for.
Me: Thanks.
Salesperson: Do you use email?
Me: Yes.
Salesperson: Would you like to sign-up for our email program and get 10% off?
Me: Sure.
He hands me a pen and a sign-up form and continues talking.
Salesperson: Email is great because we save money by sending less mailers and we can pass those savings onto our customers. You will receive your welcome email and 10% off coupon in about 24 hours.
Me: Great.

I scribbled my email address on the form and handed it back to the salesperson.

Here is a look at the three inch by two inch sign-up form.

Big-5 did a great job.

• The sales person asked the right questions and provided just enough information to seal the deal.

• He was not overbearing or annoying.

• He had the form and a working pen at the ready.

• He verified the email address once I gave it to him.

• The form was clear and easy to understand.

• If I did not provide an email address in the store but kept the form, I could always sign-up at a later date online.

Well done!

Here is the welcome I received as promised in about 24 hours.  The subject line, which has the potential for improvement, was Subscription Notification.


Do you have any POS (Point of Sale) real-life stories? Please share them with us!

In the case study, we see that Sundance Catalog was able to increase average order sizes by 2x just by adding a basic incentive to multiple types of welcome emails. Even better, Sundance was able to prove the value of incentives by testing two types of welcome emails — those sent to new subscribers who opted-in by completing an email sign-up form on the website, and those who opted-in as part of their eCommerce checkout process. In both instances, the welcome emails with the special offer outperformed the standard, control message with no offer.

Of course, incentives are not a perfect strategy for every brand. Sundance was wise in their methodology, performing a thorough test before they committed to making any final changes to their welcome email program. As a best practice, we typically recommend that most brands do the same before they begin offering discounts.

To read more about Sundance and welcome email incentives, read the full case study now.

The specialty kitchenware retailer and culinary mecca, Sur La Table, recently updated their email header text.  The new text not only follows header text best practices, but it also conserves precious email real-estate, and looks great.

Here is the updated header text. Notice the links are all clickable and are in one line at the top of the email.

Here is the original header text.  The text is not all click-able, is a bit long-winded, and takes up valuable, above the fold, vertical real-estate.

What do you think about these updates?  Have you updated your header text?  Please share your experiences and thoughts with us!

I mean that literally, of course. Take one look at this report, and you’ll understand what this holiday season is really all about: marketing like a rock star.

Want to know how to win over your adoring fans and go double platinum? Let me to take you on a cinematic, guided tour of the data from the report to find out what it takes to be an email marketing rock star this holiday season.

This year, email volumes will “go to 11″

Every year, email volumes peak during the holiday season, managing to surpass the previous maximum output of the year before. But how is it even possible to exceed what was previously considered the maximum?

By taking your email program “to 11.”

Experian CheetahMail estimates an overall email volume increase of 15 percent to 20 percent for the 2010 holiday season in comparison to Holiday 2009.

This means that email marketers, just like Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, have figured out a way to ratchet up their volumes “to 11.”

Volumes just keep going up, so email marketers had better be prepared for the barrage of messages coming from their competition and act accordingly.

Party like a rock star, even the day after

By now, everyone in America knows that Cyber Monday is an email marketing free-for-all — basically, a 24-hour email party that sees tremendous email volumes and promotions come and go in a very exciting flurry of activity. But what if some marketers don’t want the party to end so quickly?

Party like a rock star. Wake up the next morning, and keep on partying like last night never ended.

That’s at least what seemed to happen last year, when the day after Cyber Monday ended up having the greatest percent of year-over-year volume increase of any day during the holiday season. Marketers should expect more of the same this holiday season. Will the Tuesday after Thanksgiving become the next big calendar date in email marketing?

(Side note: This year, we will be referring to the day after Cyber Monday simply as “The Hangover.”)

It’s the final countdown!

As the band Europe first discovered in the year 1986, the public has a huge appetite for the notion of countdowns.

Our 2010 Holiday Marketer confirms this fact, showing that despite only being the 7th most popular type of email offer, countdown offers garner the best open and click rates of any offer type.

Emails featuring limited-time offers had a high performance last holiday season — exemplified by the strong click-to-open rate of 20.33 percent.

So there you have it — market like a rock star this holiday season, and the leather pants and pyrotechnics will surely take care of themselves. To learn even more about what it takes to make it in the industry, download the full report now.

And remember, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n’ roll!