Dec 15 2008
Blind Item: What brand is advertising value and luxury?
Can you guess which company sent an email campaign featuring a luxury image and a value offering within the same message?
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Loading ...Dec 04 2008
What’s In A Name? Cyber Monday Says It All
Now that the dust has settled from Cyber Monday, lets take a look at the facts. Our clients’ sent 50% more messages on Cyber Monday compared to last year, and 20 times what we sent on the same day in 2004.
That’s some pretty staggering growth right there.
But what seems equally interesting to me is the widespread adoption of the term “Cyber Monday.” From my days of working in architecture I learned that if you say something repeatedly over a long period of time, you can in fact create a sort of reality for it. This is how New Yorkers came to pay millions of dollars for apartments in “SpaHa” (Spanish Harlem), “NoLIta” (North of Little Italy), and “FiDi” (Financial District), thanks in large part to the clever acronyms created and repeated endlessly by real estate brokers. Stephen Colbert calls this phenomenon of creating a reality for something truthiness.
This year, the truthiness of Cyber Monday became legit: many marketers even touted their sales by name.
Let’s take a look at a few of these brazen marketers and pay homage to what looks like an emerging trend in holiday email campaigns:
Nov 05 2008
Ask the Expert: Finishing the Year Strong
Every few weeks, we saddle up with our team of email marketing experts to check the pulse of the industry. This week, we are joined by John Malangone, who oversees a number of high profile email marketing accounts in the retail, travel, and catalogue industries.
With the biggest revenue season of the year upon us, how can marketers set themselves apart from competitors and finish the year as strong as possible?
John: It is more important than ever to listen to your customers’ needs and deliver accordingly. Take the next couple weeks as an opportunity to survey customers, track click behavior, and analyze your site analytics. If you can pay attention, and get a good sense of what your customers are doing on your site and with your brand, you can optimize your messaging in creative ways. Pay attention to search terms, driving online traffic to both your and your competitors’ sites, to create new and relevant subject line tests. Take a look at internet traffic data detailing where your customers are coming from before and where they are going after visiting your site to see if you should be promoting yourself elsewhere.
Customers are looking for an easy and economical experience, so make sure you’re sending the right message at the right time, based on all industry, trend, and test data you can find. If you are a retailer, remember that these are hard times for your shoppers, and if you’re not outlining your shipping and return policies, deadlines, and other store policies, you may lose shoppers in the end. Use email to create awareness around these important details!
Oct 14 2008
Tough Financial Times Call for ‘Relevant’ Measures
Every few weeks, we saddle up with our team of email marketing experts to check the pulse of the industry. This week, we are joined by Yvette Mitchell, who oversees a number of high profile email marketing accounts in the retail, financial/credit, and consumer packaged goods industries.
The financial fallout caused by the sub-prime mortgage market is on everybody’s mind these days. With high gas and energy prices adding more hardship to consumers this holiday season, what tactics have you seen retailers implementing to meet their holiday numbers?
Yvette: Well, many retailers were smart in the months leading up to their holiday planning — they saw a clear path to cutting costs by reducing wasteful print dollars. With printing costs on the rise, a number of retailers got ahead of the game by sending fewer print catalogs in the spring and summer months. Other retailers reduced their catalog mailing list size by incorporating ‘catalog preference’ options in their online preference centers so that only interested customers would receive them.
Aug 28 2008
EEC: “Cyber Monday” Biggest Day for Email Marketers. For Customers, Not As Much
I must admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for “Cyber Monday,” the Monday following Thanksgiving that is billed as the biggest online shopping day of the year. As a general rule, I think our country could use more holidays whose names sound like they came from the 1992 film “The Lawnmower Man.”
But my personal feelings aside, the Email Experience Council’s latest Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season sheds a little light on what actually happens online immediately after Black Friday. Apparently, Cyber Monday has really caught on…with email marketers.
67% of the retailers tracked by the Retail Email Blog [sent] at least one promotional email on Nov. 26. That was up from 44% of retailers the year before. The jump made Cyber Monday the most popular retail email marketing day of the year, eclipsing the day after Christmas, which was the biggest retail email day in 2006.
Of course, higher email volumes didn’t translate into higher sales this past year, as the EEC points out in its findings. Yes, Cyber Monday may be an unofficial holiday accepted in the business world, but it’s more of a marketing holiday than a shopping one. Don’t despair too much, though, because the EEC has lots of strategic ideas for retailers to improve their holiday mailing performance, including special holiday email series and e-gift cards.
And in case you were wondering, Reve News has a handy list of last year’s top holiday online shopping days so you can witness the magic of “Whopping Web Wednesday” for yourself.
