Author: Atlantic BT

Martin’s Top 5 Holiday Ecommerce Sales Tips
Less than 30 days from Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest online sales days of the year,  it feels appropriate to share Five Ecommerce Sales Building Tips. My bona fides is growing topline and bottom line sales every year for seven years at a multimillion-dollar ecommerce site from 2003 to 2010. Here are a few tips my team and I learned during seven years of trench holiday ecommerce warfare:

Holiday Ecommerce Tip 1: Email More
A magical thing happens every year after Halloween. Traffic and visitors turn into shoppers. Change expressed itself in web analytics in several ways. Sales from our most profitable channel, email marketing, increased along with opens and clickthroughs. Number of visits over sales goes down (you want this number to go down since it means more people are buying faster). In the summer people might visit three or four times before buying. In November average visits before purchase are half with a larger group of customers buying on one visit especially if your special is great, time stamped and on a HOT product. Make the right offer at this time of year and people BUY NOW.

Everyone worries about email unsubscribe trends when you mail more frequently. We managed a list of 60,000 and never exceeded 1% unsubscribes no matter how often we mailed. We mailed almost daily in November and at least daily in December. When you mail that often your aggregate unsubscribes, the real number of people leaving your list, is going up but new people are coming on fast too. I always felt unsubscribes vs. new was a wash at this time of year.

Emailing more means you need more and better creative. Use the season’s natural rhythm and timing to help. Start your “pre-Holiday Sale” on 11.1 and end it a few days before Thanksgiving. People travel on Thanksgiving so the five days before are throw away. End your pre-holiday sale five days out from Thanksgiving (say on the previous Friday or so). Set up a cool little interim sale to end on Thanksgiving day. This gives you a “last day” offer on Thanksgiving when site traffic will be low. Don’t waste a great offer then. My direct marketing boss taught me the “best offers, best times of year” rule and Thanksgiving day isn’t one of them so don’t waste the bullet.

Black Friday, the Friday AFTER Thanksgiving is another story. Some ecommerce sites create a one day only Black Friday deal flow with timed sequences (early bird, middle of the day and almost done). If you have a large Internet marketing team that kind of creative works. My little 3-person team and I created Black Friday sales that ended on Sunday night giving way to one day only Cyber Monday offer that was among the best of the season. You want to shoot LARGE bullets on Black Friday and Cyber Monday because they set a tone for the entire holiday sales season. If you have the best offer on either day your traffic will be supported by thousands of Facebook links, Tweets and mobile emails so go all out on those two days despite the noise.

Each day from 11.1 to about 12.20 needs careful choreography with Fast, Medium and Slow contingencies. If the holiday sales season is robust stay with FAST. If things are slow up the ante and throw in your bench offers. As my P&G boss taught, pre-planning prevents piss poor performance – never more true than ecommerce during November and December. Leave room for what is happening, don’t over plan, but be sure to create a flexible ecommerce strategy for the major touch points of the holiday sales season.

Holiday Ecommere Tip 2: More Promotional Social Media
If you’ve been a good curator the rest of the year by sharing great links and mentioning helpful articles the fourth quarter is when your harvest good will by increasing your Tweet frequency to at least 1x per hour (use a tool like Bufferapp to help schedule Tweets ahead making sure to leave room for reactions and thank you you tweets). Putt new content on Facebook at least 1x a day and 3x isn’t out of the question. Facebook should be able to feed itself with customers talking to each other. Make sure and post clear Facebook guidelines and monitor the heck out of it.

Facebook is the cocktail party the night before the big sale. Arm your guests with plenty to talk about and be specific. If your sale is breaking records, and you always should be, in discount levels or numbers of items on sale lead with that headline. If you are being helped by customer feedback share it and ask for more. Create special Facebook and Twitter only deals and links to reinforce the tribal nature of both spaces. Give “Friend” or “Supporter” codes in Facebook. Give hair curling discounts on Twitter. Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback and ask for feedback. If you get stumped on what to put on sale create a poll on Facebook and in your email. Be prepared to do whatever the poll tells you since there is nothing worse than asking for input and then not taking it.

Holiday Ecommerce Tip 3: Create A Flexible Promotion Calendar With Free Shipping
Choreography is so critical at this time of year, but you don’t know how things are going to shake out. Expect Free Shipping to be the cost of holiday sales ecommerce poker, but experiment with triggers such as Free Shipping on purchases over $50. $50 may be a reach at other times of the year but low for your business during the Holidays. I’ve done a lot of Free Shipping testing and my best advice is put Free Shipping on all orders starting, at the latest, 11.1. You will reward some who would have reached to make a trigger, but I NEVER saw a free shipping trigger we didn’t beat by at least 50%. If we said “Free Shipping For Purchases Over $50” then our average would go to $90. Once the shipping concern is over people BUY and that is what you want at this time of year. Don’t fall over the $1,000 bills to pick up nickels and dimes just GO, GO, GO.

Holiday Shipping Calendars = Very Important
Be sure to add a Holiday Shipping calendar feature no latter than 11.1. People forget how close Holiday dates are and how long it takes to get stuff. They expect what they are thinking about to be on their porch tomorrow. Gently reminding your customers of your picking and packing schedules, days your staff is off and weather contingencies are a great way to create holiday deadlines, deadlines that reinforce your merchandising. I’m a strong believer in DEADLINES. Our rhythm was to alert customers to a sale (email #1), highlight things popping in the sale and provide alerts to any out-of-stocks on the horizon (email #2), warn about the sale ending (email #3), last warning usually the day or Friday before a Monday close (email #4) and then last day (email #5). Sometimes we cut out the middle and went with “SALE IS HERE”, “SALE IS ALMOST OVER” AND “SALE IS OVER”. You see this language every stroll through any mall in America this time of year for a reason – IT WORKS. Deadlines force action and this time of year is rife with deadlines (Thank God).

Holiday Ecommerce Tip 4: Mobile Commerce
There is one exception to my “never greater than 1%” email unsubscribe rule – not sniffing and sending properly formatted mobile emails. A sniffer is a piece of code that knows the platform about to receive an email. Sniffers are very important since much of your list, possibly unknown to you, receive your emails on cell phones, iPhones, iPads or BlackBerries. Sending poorly formatted emails to mobile bumps unsubscribes well above 1%.

Your ecommerce site also looks untrustworthy when you aren’t sophisticated enough to sniff so you damage your main site in incalculable ways. Add a sniffer or pay someone to do it for you and make sure you are sniffing before you mail your next email.

Email marketing should be mobile-friendly anyway. If you have 100 words of copy on an email at this time of year you should be shot. Great subject lines, less than 20 words total text (include any text in images), large calls to action and no more than ten link points (and less than 7 is better) should be the kinds of billboard-y emails you create at this time of year. Your customers should see a compelling image, decide between a few Calls To Action, read a little story and then get out of the way. Those kinds of emails play well on any device. Hemingway won a drinking game once when challenged to tell a complete story in six words. His story was, “Baby shoes, hardly worn, for sale.” Telling complete stories in as few words as possible this time of year is an e-commerce MUST.

I didn’t cover list segmentation in Tip 1 because if you aren’t segmenting already don’t even try now. Blast away and work on segmentation in January (or March if Valentine’s day looms large for your business). Segmenting is the real gold of email marketing (and all Internet marketing if you ask me) and we will be sharing tips on how to segment customers soon. Don’t attempt to create segmentation during the holidays, keep your emails design mobile-friendly and use a sniffer.

Holiday Ecommerce Tip 5: Metrics And Web Analytics
Key Performance Indicators and web analytics are never more important than right now (during the holiday sales period from Back To School in September through Valentine’s Day in February). I lowered my “deep dive” criteria starting about now (Halloween) from a + or – 5% standard KPI deviation to less than 2%. The crucial idea, and one I can’t emphasize enough, is you must watch positive and negative trends. “Positive trends are all good,” you may incorrectly be thinking. One year a competitor started a Google storm, spamming tweets from the third world, at this time of year trying to take our site out of the Google game by Christmas.

We saw the storm because we were +10% over our traffic KPI while conversions didn’t move. If we sat back and were happy about the attack (it would have been easy to make such an incorrect assumption) we couldn’t have reported the links as spam and the damage would have been worse (it still hurt). Watch anything + or – 2% in your top 5 KPI’s at this time of year. When you see something out of the norm dive and find out why immediately since time is truly of the essence.

Holiday web metrics are also different. Not only do people get serious about buying they want shorter and sharper paths to popular products. Refine your merchandising emphasizing the 20% of stuff controlling 80% of your gross sales. Create special landing pages from your internal search tool (this is the time of year an Enedca or Fast Search really earns their money). Remember to keep Google’s spider OUT of your seasonal landing pages to avoid duplicate content penalties. Watch for trends like a hawk watching a field for dinner. When you see a little known product pop, have sales greater than 2% above expectation, feed it with better placement in search, advertise the product on interior banners, feature the hot product on your site and mention the trend in an email. Anything popping above 15% should be on your home page until it calms down. If it doesn’t calm down figure a way to increase its real estate on your home page and consider creating a special landing environment (several pages of content all dedicated to the HOT item).

Put BUY NOW buttons on anything and everything you do at this time of year. Favor buy now over “READ MORE”, “LEARN MORE” and other less forceful CTA’s (calls to action).

See the immediacy of what is happening at this time of year? Planning everything to the nth degree online is crazy. Plan 25% of your promotions, let your traffic determine another 25% and then react 50% of the time. Over planning kills your ability to feed or put out fires. How to know what fires to feed and the ones to put out is another post for another time, today just focus on creating a flexible merchandising plan and watch your site’s Key Performance Indicator numbers like a hawk on a wire.

Summary

I’ve lived through and can share the stories of seven holiday sales seasons working on a B2C web site (B2B has seasonality too but that is for another post). Our site made more money each holiday than the one before even as doing so became harder each year. We got better at the special frenzy that is this time of year. I never felt more alive, challenged or exhausted by my birthday (New Year’s Day). Ecommerce at this time of year is about as much fun as you can have without riding a bicycle across America (and I’ve done both :), so enjoy and let us know if we can help in any way.

Martin

—
Martin Smith
Director of Marketing
Atlantic BT
Martin(dot)Smith(at)AtlanticBT(dot)com

I didn’t know it then. Working for M&M/Mars as a newly minted Sales Information Analyst struggling to create a regression analysis by hand the future was visiting Mars. I was asked to determine why Royals, a mint M&M’s, wasn’t getting traction in its test market in Buffalo, New York. I’d identified dependent and independent variables, I’d thrown everything in to Lotus (and I know how badly that dates me J) and was working the numbers HARD.

It was my first big test. Having created a crude territory management system on a very expensive and not very powerful PC purchased with a loan from Marine Midland bank I’d been promoted to do something similar across the world of M&M’s. Holding one after another variable constant I watched the regression of the now dependant variables such as sales, profit per shelf facing or distribution point. Nothing made sense. I was lost in the data.

I’d been selected to be an M&M’s taste tester and trust me this sounds much more fun than it actually is since sitting in a room for hours eating and then spitting out the new Twix turned out to be painful. Coming back to my noisy desk in M&M/Mars large open national office, no one has an office at Mars, Incorporated, I decided to introduce taste panel data into my analysis.

I was young, stupid and oblivious to the dangers of mixing church and state. Introducing and then regressing the taste panel the conclusion was clear. Royals wasn’t very good, or more accurately a little Royals went a long way. I was asked to determine why 16 ounces of Royales were sitting on shelves. Our sales force was the biggest buyer of Royales. When the product hit its freshness date we would issue a credit and destroy the product so consumers didn’t eat stale Royales.

Consumers weren’t eating Royales because a few after dinner was great, a 16-ounce bag was death by mint M&M’s. Creating a five-page report I called a meeting (first mistake). Expecting applause, accolades and a big biscuit I finished my report, looked up (this is well before computer aided presentations) to see angry, cold silence. No one spoke for what seemed an eternity. Sometimes you know instantly you’ve been a fool despite your ability to predict it before hand and this was one of those moments.

The two most senior managers left the room without a word. Alone with my boss and mentors Charlie Purdy and Wolfgang Pfeiffer I learned of my faux pas. You didn’t tell senior Mars Brand Managers their products were so significantly flawed. It simply wasn’t done. Charlie and Wolfgang would help me understand the ropes well enough to climb them instead of hang myself over the next few years. The future couldn’t be turned back even by uber-powerful, freshly minted Wharton MBA Brand Managers.

Royales died an unmerciful death and some tough conversations took place well above my pay grade. I’d just experienced my first example of an important internet marketing rule (even though there wasn’t a Internet then) – the math always wins. Will share more contemporary examples of why the math always wins soon. In the meantime, if you have any Royales please throw them out as they are well past their freshness date :).

Martin

—
Martin.Smith(at)Atlanticbt(dot)com
Director of Marketing

Is Google The New Yahoo?

Google twists precariously on a thin wire. Actions now define the future of the most successful technology ever created. There is so much power in Google, so much fair intent. Google may be the purest expression of who we are as individuals, countries and a blue marble spinning in infinite, expanding space.

The nature and value of the most perfect mathematical expression of human aspiration is at risk. Aspiration collection at this level is pure art. Well removed from the science of its creation Google’s massive brain is the closest thing to intelligent silicone and integrated circuit so perfectly matched to human desire and intention it may be more human than humans.

The risk of so much manna is ever present and always tempting. Twist the dial even the smallest amount in either direction and purity leaves the building. Evil isn’t the result as much as something surely perceived as an inevitable slouching toward Bettelheim. What is the common trend of these Google moves:

Index Float

Secure Socket Layer Encrypting

G +

Google’s Index Float
When Google decided to create individual search results sets based on mob + individual results something important ended. Once I see a different result set than you striving for a #1 listing carries less or no value. Even when using a tool like Mike’s to determine a true Google organic listing what does it mean? Nothing really because the only thing that means anything is did you drive more traffic today than yesterday and today vs. last year trended for as many years as you have. Google’s float means metrics drive. The need for viral, purple cow, content has never been greater. Google’s floating index values what you’ve searched in the past, what your friends are talking about now and what their super-model tells them makes sense, what is relevant. Watching a presenter at Content Marketing World decry metrics tools before sharing a logged in screen view of “all my #1 listings” I didn’t have the heart to explain I had a very different set of listings on my computer.

The idea of the #1 listing dies hard. Google float is a hard concept. Fighting tooth and nail to get to the top of a hill (achieve a Google #1 listing) is easier to understand. Google’s number 1 listing’s demise means comparison to an absolute as a search engine optimization is dead and gone buried by Google’s search for relevancy and our human tendency to ask the wrong questions, in the wrong way about the wrong things.

SSL Encryption
Brian wrote a great piece about Secure Socket Layer encryption and Rachel is working on the evil side of the equation so I will stay out of the “he said” vs. “she said” controversy only saying that SSL is really about search volume. Retargeting, showing ads to you in the vast infinity of our content network world, after visiting site works because we trust things we see more. Retargeting watches your shoe search and increases the relevancy of the display ads on sites you visit next significantly increasing chances of your buying. The problem isn’t in your buying it is in your NOT continuing to search. If SSL cuts 30% of your search volume moving it from Google to retargeting content marketing networks it saves YOU (consumers) time and costs Google money.

G+
Google Plus is the key. It could make both moves outlined benign or cancerous. If Google artificially maneuvers G+ results ahead of Facebook and Twitter they mess with the very forces of nature, forces they created, nurtured and carefully grew.  Pervert, change or sell in any way even to themselves and Google becomes the next Yahoo (an example of the dangers of selling editorial search engine credibility to the highest bidder).

Is Google already Yahoo? Is Rome crumbling? As Jason Fells, author of No Bullshit Social Media, said tonight at Argyle Social’s event in Durham, the Jury is out with little indication of pending verdict. Hope Google does not become the next Yahoo since creating anything is hard, creating an “insanely great” thing is damn near impossible and creating GOOGLE is the hand of God.

Google Implements SSL and hides search referral data from Internet Marketers!

A step in the right direction towards making the Internet less “big brother”? As Internet marketing analysts and specialists write angry blog posts, I’m relieved. The Internet just became more private. It may surprise you that an Internet Marketing Analyst feels this way about Google trying to hide search referral data.

What is SSL?

The acronym stands for “Secure Sockets Layer” which is a way of privately transmitting data through the Internet. Basically, when you are logged into your Google account and execute a search, it will prevent your search query from being grabbed by the website result you eventually click on.

Internet Marketing Just Got Harder

Internet marketing is rife with snake oil salesmen: businesses who promise the world based on little more than a grouping of keywords and magical thinking.  I’ve been optimizing web sites for search engines for a long time and have yet to see magical thinking attain a Google page 1 listing. Have you heard this sentence before, “I will get you #1 position for  keyword x”?  This is the wrong question asked in the wrong way about the wrong thing. Why focus on a keyword??  Keywords don’t kill business, people do. You hire us to increase your business.  Focusing on a keyword’s rank and not the bottom line is how businesses die.

Once your company’s, brand’s or product’s unique selling proposition (USP) is defined, your creation story written and macro strategy outlined, keywords can be placed in context. Keyword research is not fun. Researching keywords requires patience, determination and experience. It may be difficult for you to target specific keywords to optimize, because they are “red oceans” (competition is intense). The good news is EVERYONE ELSE is having the same problem.

Google makes changes all the time. Everything we know can change any minute. “This,” as Mr. Pacino so aptly stated in GodFather III, “is the business we’ve chosen.” During my Atlantic BT tenure in Raleigh, we’ve pivoted many times. SSL becomes just another turn, another rule in an ever changing game.

SSL and Search Retargeting

What is search retargeting?  Retargeting is when a company sells your personal and private data gathered when you visit a site via a “cookie”.  Ever had that eerie feeling of a company following you as you traverse the world wide web?  Google’s SSL implementation reduces the footsteps by hiding data from the companies who were  following you.

How search retargeting works:

1.  I type “best basketball shoes” into Google and visit www.about.com.

2.  www.about.com assigns a cookie telling a cookie repository I searched for “best basketball shoes”.

3. Simpli.Fi, Rocket Fuel, or another search retargeting company buys my cookie data from a vendor such as Blue Kai.

4.  Nike works with the search retargeting company that then shows you their basketball shoe ads on advertisement exchange networks encompassing almost  85% of the internet.

5.  Result: My search  information was just sold to the highest bidder!

Putting all eggs in ONE basket?

Google’s SSL changes open online marketers’ eyes, forcing more creative solutions to grow client business.  Google wants to make the search experience better.  Is Google’s SSL change good or evil?  The good or evil question is moot, like most things GOOGLE, this latest change, this SSL change, simply IS. If Internet marketing was the same all the time, it would be less interesting and not as fun. Internet marketing is building castles on the beach as fast as humanly possible and with the inevitable mean regression already in mind. The next time some snake oil salesman promises a #1 listing on an intensely competitive keyword, ask them about their sand castle building philosophy.

Did you know managing email marketing the wrong way could get your web site banned?

Spam a large email list and nothing good can happen. “What do you mean, I get spammed all the time,” you are thinking. If you are a black hat Internet marketer set to spam then nothing is going to stop you. Most Internet marketers reading this Atlantic BT post are well meaning Internet marketers who want to do the right thing and may step on trip wires anyway. Here is a list of email marketing Do’s and Do Not’s honed from fire, experience and the desire to do the right thing:

Don’t

• Don’t Use FREE in the subject line
• Don’t say Free Shipping = not good but Shipping is on Us = Better
• Don’t Use business names in subject
• Don’t use common spam phrases such as “limited time” or “act now” in subject and avoid in body copy (if you have to use these phrases do so in images since spiders can’t “see” images)
• Don’t use more than 12 words in subject and try and live with 7 (seven is the magic number for billboard advertising and not a bad goal for email marketing subject lines)
• Carefully mention major holidays (be sure NOT to use anything too sales-y around them such as Free Trial ends on Christmas)
• Don’t write more than 200 words in an email unless clearly marked as NEWSLETTER and don’t send newsletters more than once a month
• Don’t lock into a schedule you either can’t support or will drive customers crazy (there is always more list flexibility than you realize as long as communication is relevant and segmented – see segmented point below)
• DON’T Talk more than you listen(good rule for all social media marketing and for Neo–maxi-zoom-dweebie marketing of all sorts 🙂
  • Provide links to share feedback other than opting out
  • If you have reviews or testimonials consistently share them and always ask for more (asking for more legitimizes the ones you have)
  • If you have video use it to get higher open rates but be careful about “video” in the subject (check to see if on spam watch list (read excellent post on watch lists from Stephanie Miller)
• Don’t Sell Used Cares – making offers is fine but “selling” is best done via reviews, testimonials and some perceived neutral third party (Yelp, Alexa, epinions)
• If someone is saying bad things out in the world DON’T bring it back to your site and NEVER in an email since this is the equivalent of gas on a fire (DO create content AROUND the fire so you can burn it out, like a backfire)
• Don’t let search engine spiders see your emails (can cause duplicate content problems and is usually more dangerous than beneficial) – put email into a folder and use Robots.txt to exclude spider (many think of emails as content and so want them on their site, this is wrong because the ratio of pictures to text isn’t great and Google HATES the DM-like nature of email language excluding email from spiders is safest bet)
• Don’t Panic if (or when) you get black listed, but do contact the regulatory personal at the ISP and ask for specifics for why you are black listed and any recommendations to fix the problem (this is a TRUE pain btw)
• Don’t single opt-in because it is too dangerous these days, but 2x opting in does cut conversion from landing page to list acceptance by half, so some may decide to live dangerously…if living dangerously must watch other metrics like a hawk since any small misstep will lead to black listing and black listing can grow like cancer.
• Don’t Buy lists (these never work)

Do

• Do gather cell phone numbers and be active in social media marketing since both create disaster hedge for email marketing (you will never lose list + social at same time, well maybe NEVER is to strong, you shouldn’t EVER lose your email marketing list AND social or cell)
• Do reference Seasons – “5 tips to improve indoor tennis this winter”
• Do evaluate who serves your site AND who serves your emails (better if both come from same place as long as ISP knows how to manage email marketing)
• Ask your ISP’s “best practices” and if they look at you quizzically RUN
• Do include at least 2 but no more than 5 Calls To Action, but no more than 5 (remember opt-out is a CTA so really no more than 4)
• Do use social media marketing to help build your list
• Do include Twitter and Facebook “add this” like tools and prepopulate the link but make sure it is never more than 110 characters (best for ReTweets)
• Do be aware YOUR email practices impact your host too since they will be banned right along with you if you violate email protocols and best practices (stated or unstated)
• Do read your ISP’s compliance page – most ISP’s have compliance pages and your email marketing should live well within guidelines
• Do create contests and campaigns specifically designed to grow your list (growing converting lists is an art and a science)
• Use names in email but even more important is next bullet
• Segment list by customer profiles (this is also art and science read Robert Rose’s Managing Content Marketing and visit Sally Hogshead’s site for segmentation tips
• Include 2 – 4 Calls To Action in every email (Newsletters included)
• Contact my friend Alan Fitzpatrick at mailVU in Charlotte and put video in emails (higher open rates)
• Create a NEWSLETTER and mail it religiously monthly
• Give subscribers the ability to profile and select frequency within general alternatives such as “News” not “once a month”- always talk subjects not timing since timing locks you in
• Treat AOL subscribers carefully since there are still a lot of them
• Make sure you create a specific AOL unsubscribe button so they DON’T hit unsubscribe to opt out (as this can get you in penalty box across other ISP’s)
• Be sure to clean your list for abuse@zzzzzz(dot)com addresses (most email tools do this automatically now)
• Include a feedback path besides opt-out as this can cut the number of opt-outs
• Always reward people for being on your list and reinforce the benefit with words like “exclusive”, “VIP”, “team” and “club”
• Share customer feedback and testimonials via email, but make sure you have a link to where someone reading the email can contribute (link = legitimacy)
• Do Stay Calm and Carry On 🙂

Email Time
As Internet marketers we have calendars regulated by our promotional needs. Our customers calendars are regulated by their needs not ours. Holidays and ritualized events provide bridges between promotional needs and customers. B2B clients tend to think this rule doesn’t apply. Not so, the pull of regular ritual is so valuable it makes sense for B2C and B2B. B2B clients have to work a little harder to relate past the ritual and to issues their customers face, but rituals as openings are ALWAYS helpful.

Email Marketing Action
Email is an IMMEDIATE medium. Don’t send email about something happening in a month. Do send email about something happening at the end of the week and then “drip” your campaign being careful to be relevant and different with each drip (email sent).

Email Marketing Offers
When email marketers aren’t specific then those receiving their email will be confused. Confused customers never buy (or convert to via white papers or other “soft” conversions. Confused customers DO opt out. Really confused customers complain and REALLY confused customers get mad and make your misery their mission (recommend avoiding this). Be specific, friendly and supportive.

Email Marketing Polls and Games
Bet you lunch your highest open rates will be on easy and fun polls and games. People are naturally curious about others. Smart email marketers use our group curiosity to engage and then convert. Pay votes with a landing results page with a clear Call To Action.

Email Marketing Respect
There is a trend to use secret crassness in emails in order to shock an open. With very few exceptions (Howard Stern) such shock openings don’t work (opens go up, conversions go down). Respect people on your list. Don’t go for shock and awe (works short term only and divots long term list viability and future marketing).

Email Marketing Nonverbals
Everything you do online communicates in secret ways. Email marketing is no exception. How an email is designed, words used, colors and subject all communicate MORE than surface values. Everything you do (and this is true for site design too) communicate “tribal” “like me” values. People are so inundated with messaging anyone opting into a list, especially 2x opt in, wants to be there. All communications must be consistent with the brand they signed up under. If a brand is a video brand, use video. If a brand is a trust mark (banks) then stock photography and large, impenetrable buildings are important. Design firms can be more creative while being mindful of the respect rule.

Email Marketing Consistency
There is a lot of communication floating around now. Emails, social media and what others are saying about you can create cacophony. Email saying one thing, site doing another and social doing yet a third is not unusual. Damaging doesn’t begin to cover it. Email suffers the most because trust is earned HARD on email. Make an offer that doesn’t work, is inconsistent with something on Twitter or other social platforms or present poorly formatted emails to mobile (phones or tablets) and prepared to be flamed, have higher unsubscribe rates or worse (people complaining to FTC). A consistent, careful and supportive communications strategy has never been more important.

Email Marketing Disaster Plan
Stuff happens. Dry run a disaster plan such as cascading blacklisting (usually starts with AOL), delisted (this has actually happened to me) or someone screaming on other contact points about email practices. Here is how I would respond to each:

• Cascading blacklist – start with AOL since if they turn positive others will follow. This is VERY hard to do since their regulatory people can be hard to reach so you may be forced to work outside in (from smaller ISPs in toward AOL).
• Delisted –  Your url’s are hosted. If your emails come from your host BEWARE they can take your site all the way down to China Town.   Read your ISP’s (host and email provider’s) Terms and Conditions (horrible reading but necessary). If problems prop up be ready to defend with 2x opt in and a long history of non-spam best practices. Best practices is to have site URLs with a trusted source (such as Atlantic BT) OR someone so large your URL’s are nondescript (Netsolutons). Never have URLs and emails in same place UNLESS you know and trust the ISP.
• Customers or advocates screaming about email practices on Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms hurts but isn’t fatal. Fatal is ignoring the feedback or trying to defend on the same platform (never do this). When you get flamed look up what to do in the disaster plan and follow your strategy such as moving brewing fires over to less traffic properties like blogs or one-to-one email.

Email marketing provides the highest margins (typically) of any online marketing channel. Email marketing also has the greatest potential for disaster if you ignore or are unaware of email marketing best practices. Each email bets your online company so treat it as CRITICAL COMMERCE. Each email communicates overtly and covertly so be aware of both. Each email is another opportunity to listen so be sure to do so. Each email should be consistent with the macro communication strategy outlined by company, brand and product.

Did past mistakes of others create a mind field for our generation of email marketers? Yep, but it is what it is.

Mistakes happen. We are human. Heartfelt communication is so rare it is valuable.

Finally, remember that selling anything is emotional well before it is logical. My old P&G boss Russ Mills taught, “People buy with emotion and justify with logic”. Email marketing and all Internet marketing and web development  should heed Russ’s advice particularly since few do :).

Atlantic BT will be updating our product offerings to include high margin, high quality email marketing soon. If you would like to speak to someone in the meantime, please call, email or come visit Atlantic BT at our first Raleigh Internet Marketing Meetup tomorrow.

Martin

—
Martin Smith
Director of Marketing
Martin.Smith(at)AtlanticBT(dot)com

P.S. This list of email marketing best practices is not exhaustive. If you have other valuable email tips please share in comments and we will pull together and share.