When it comes to Halloween, the treats always beat the tricks. The same applies to email. Email is a very effective way to share personalized messages with those who have opted in to engage with a company or organization. But just like with any other medium, there are people out there who don’t play by [...]]]>

When it comes to Halloween, the treats always beat the tricks. The same applies to email. Email is a very effective way to share personalized messages with those who have opted in to engage with a company or organization. But just like with any other medium, there are people out there who don’t play by the rules and use email for malicious purposes.

Silverpop’s customers only send permission-based messages designed to educate, inform and share special offers with their audience in order to help their companies grow. But, just like any of us, they can also be the targets of those with detrimental goals. With that in mind, Silverpop recently introduced multifactor authentication to our platform to help marketers keep their data safer and more secure. This feature adds an additional layer of security to your account by requiring users to enter an authentication code before they can access your data.

Of course, even with the best technological safeguards, sometimes bad things happen to good people. That’s why we’re always looking for ways we can help digital marketers help themselves improve data security and keep their companies safe from phishing emails and other harmful communications.

And so, to better enable you to maintain the highest level of security, I wanted to share some of the tips I’ve found to be most helpful.

First, it’s important to keep in mind that all malicious email attacks rely on tricking the recipient into clicking on a link, opening an attachment or running a program that leads to unauthorized access to your computer. Here are some common characteristics of potentially dangerous emails to keep an eye out for:

• Slightly misspelled URLs (e.g. www.acmemarkting.com or www.acm8marketing.com instead of acmemarketing.com): These may appear in both links within an email and in the “reply to” email address. Official corporate emails will rarely come from other “lookalike” addresses such as “acme-marketing.com” or “acme_marketing.com.”
• Links that don’t match the actual destination: You can check this by hovering over the link. For example, a link might read as “www.acmemarketing.com,” but hovering over it shows “http://ThisIsSpam.com.” 
• Attachments: Including attachments in emails is an inefficient way for a company to collect or disseminate information, and thus attachments are rarely used for this purpose.
  • Think about whether an attachment makes sense. Most of the time, a link would have been more efficient and therefore would have been used instead. 
  • Make sure the extension is logical. If someone sends you an email saying, “Please review the attached spreadsheet,” and the attachment contains a “.pst” extension, something isn’t right.
  • Be careful opening PDF or Flash documents. We know how tempting it can be to open that animation claiming, “You have to watch this! It’s the funniest video ever.” Resist that temptation.  Even if it’s legitimate, it’s probably not that funny.
  • Be wary of overly generic emails or attachment names, especially if they come from someone not personally known to you. If you have any suspicions at all, reply to the sender with, “Can you fill me in about what this is about?” before you open the attachment.

• Unencrypted links: Whenever a site asks you for personal information (social security number, passwords, etc.), take the time to check that the URL it’s sending you is secure. If it’s encrypted, the link will start with “https://” and not “http://”. 
• Clicking on a link flags a security warning: Often this is a false positive, but if clicking on a link prompts a security warning from your browser, you should proceed with caution if at all. 
• Little or no support information and/or generic greeting: Be wary of emails with no customer service contact info or unsubscribe link, poor grammar and/or impersonal greetings.
• Sender appears legitimate: Don’t assume that just because an email comes from a valid address that there’s nothing wrong with it. Sometimes when a computer is infected, it will send a new malicious email to everyone in the victim’s address book. Be vigilant, and if something about an email from a coworker or friend strikes you as odd, don’t trust it.

Last but certainly not least, keep these words of email wisdom in mind:

• You probably haven’t won the lottery.
• There’s no lawyer/barrister/solicitor holding vast sums of money you are due.
• The generous prince isn’t real. Sorry ladies.
• If you deposit that check and send a stranger half, it’s a safe bet you’ll lose everything.
• Random solicitations looking for “a discrete business relationship” at great profit will always result in a net loss for you.
• The lovely lady professing her interest is not interested in the same kind of “relationship” you are.
• Those pills are fake.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Let that email go.

I had been expecting the news. I wasn’t sure if it would be this year or next or maybe even a few more years after that. But when Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO, I knew his time was drawing to a close. I expected that when he passed on, the world would mourn. I [...]]]>

I had been expecting the news. I wasn’t sure if it would be this year or next or maybe even a few more years after that. But when Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO, I knew his time was drawing to a close. I expected that when he passed on, the world would mourn. I expected the outpouring would exceed anything any CEO had every received. In fact, the only thing that really surprised me was just how deeply it affected me.

At first, I was surprised at my own reaction. It took me a day to realize why. While the world mourned the loss of the visionary man who created the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, it was his broader but less celebrated accomplishments that may leave the largest hole. Steve Jobs was the man that single-handedly convinced an entire dysfunctional recording industry to sell its music one song at a time for 99 cents and brought it, kicking and screaming, into the digital age. He convinced a telecommunications industry that epitomized inertia to fundamentally remake the way mobile services were sold, provisioned and consumed. Despite having no background in the film industry, the studio he created, Pixar, quickly achieved the highest average revenue per movie of any studio in history. And, perhaps most amazing of all, he and his family had the best haunted house in the neighborhood each Halloween.

No less noteworthy were the things Steve Jobs did not do. I never saw him on talk shows. As far as I know, he didn’t lobby governments for alternative energy programs or third-world intervention. Outside of Apple, he didn’t seem to be a regular keynote speaker at industry events. He certainly didn’t attempt to write a series of business books.

Upon reflection, the reason that his death has hit me so hard is that the world has lost a man who had everything we’re supposed to want—fame, money, influence—but seemed to be only interested in the things so many of us already have: a family and an opportunity to passionately pursue the things he loved.

Many people have said that Steve Jobs’ death is the end of an era. I’d like to think that his life marks the beginning of an era. Steve Jobs showed us how a relentless pursuit of excellence, beauty and ideals can transform anything, even things as mundane as circuit boards, business processes and software, into creations that can change the world … forever. He did things most of us can only dream of, and he did them purely because they were worth being done. I hope you will all join me in ensuring this new era of excellence, beauty and ideals lives up to and exceeds the vision of the man who started it.

Although most social networks give you some visibility to promote your email program, such as a home or profile pages, Facebook offers the richest experience right now, not just to collect opt-ins but also to engage more deeply with customers and to promote email content.

These tips will help you grow your database using Facebook’s unique [...]]]>

Although most social networks give you some visibility to promote your email program, such as a home or profile pages, Facebook offers the richest experience right now, not just to collect opt-ins but also to engage more deeply with customers and to promote email content.

These tips will help you grow your database using Facebook’s unique properties:

1. Create an “Email” tab: Create a unique tab on your company or brand’s Facebook page, and make it the landing page for every visitor who hasn’t clicked “Like” on your page. Give the tab a distinct name such as “Newsletters” or “Email Offers” to distinguish it from your “Wall,” “Info,” “Discussions” and other tabs on your page.

2. Explain your email value proposition: Describe the contents of your core email program and reinforce specific value propositions. These might include being notified of special sales before non-subscribers or invitations to events. Also, make clear what your typical email frequency is.

3. Show samples. Use screenshots of recent email newsletters or other examples to show potential subscribers what they can expect from your emails.

4. Promote other programs: If you have other email streams beyond your core email, make those easy to opt in to as well with short but obvious descriptions and check boxes.

5. Post email content in wall posts: Highlight your email content in wall posts on the same day you send it to your regular subscribers. Note that these are the kinds of offers your email subscribers receive regularly. Use an inline link to your opt-in tab so that readers don’t have to click out of Facebook to sign up.

Want to see how email opt-in via Facebook can work for you? View Silverpop’s Newsletter tab on our Facebook page.

More Holiday Resources:
1) Blog: “Quick Holiday Tip: Include Shipping Options and Deadlines in Holiday Retail Emails”
2) Tip Sheet: “8 New Twists on Holiday Marketing Traditions to Help Drive Revenue”

Are you where your customers and prospects are? From social media sites to mobile apps, smart phones to local check-ins, the emergence of new communication and marketing channels has opened up a world of opportunities for marketers—while making it increasingly important that companies engage with people when, where and how they want. Here’s an illustrated [...]]]>

Are you where your customers and prospects are? From social media sites to mobile apps, smart phones to local check-ins, the emergence of new communication and marketing channels has opened up a world of opportunities for marketers—while making it increasingly important that companies engage with people when, where and how they want. Here’s an illustrated look at how companies are tackling multichannel marketing today, along with ideas for enhancing your campaigns:

For more insights and tips on thriving in a multichannel marketing landscape, check out Silverpop’s mocial survey, “How Companies Are Using Social, Mobile, Local and Email,” and our white paper, “Secrets of Effectively Integrating Email, Social, Mobile and Local.”

How do Internet Retailer’s Top 500 ecommerce companies perform on some fundamental email marketing concepts? Silverpop’s newest research report, “2011 Top Retailers Study: Benchmarks, Trends and Tactics for Better Marketing” shows a mix of encouraging signs and clear indications that many marketers still need to step up their efforts.

Below you’ll find five of the key [...]]]>

How do Internet Retailer’s Top 500 ecommerce companies perform on some fundamental email marketing concepts? Silverpop’s newest research report, “2011 Top Retailers Study: Benchmarks, Trends and Tactics for Better Marketing” shows a mix of encouraging signs and clear indications that many marketers still need to step up their efforts.

Below you’ll find five of the key findings I shared during a lively session at IRCE, Internet Retailer’s annual conference and expo in San Diego (see links below to download my presentation and the complete white paper).

1. Opt-In Process Needs Visibility, Options

Link location: Nearly all marketers (92 percent) give their Web visitors ample opportunity to sign up for email by featuring opt-in boxes throughout their websites, not just on the home page. But where’s the link on the home page?

• 47 percent place it at the bottom of the home page, where it’s below the fold and typically hard to find.
• 36 percent place it in prime real estate at or near the top of the page.
• 18 percent slide it in somewhere in the middle.

Did testing show one location drew more opt-ins than the others? Or did the email marketing team lose the battle of real estate and the opt-in box was relegated to less valuable real estate?

Tip: Insist that all elements of the home page align with your marketing program, and present data that bolster your claim. Test opt-in email field location, surrounding language for value proposition, and follow-on preference center fields and layout.

Opt-in Options: One-third (33 percent) of Top 500 retailers allow subscribers to customize their email messages, including shopping preferences such as category, style, gender/age options (56 percent), communication channel choices (35 percent) or frequency (33 percent).

This percentage appears to be plateauing. Why? Perhaps marketers are opting for a simpler process that gets more addresses into the database more quickly, rather than a more complicated one that yields a richer vein of data.

Tips: Offer a two-stage process. Stage one adds the address to the database upon confirmation, while stage two moves the subscriber to a second page seeking critical segmentation data (gender, location, preferences, etc.) Even if the subscriber declines to add information, you’ve still got the address.

Also, think beyond the website for opt-ins, including:

• Enabling consumers to opt in at the point of sale by texting a message
• Adding opt-in forms on your Facebook brand page.
• Promoting your email program via your Twitter stream.
• Dynamically populating transactional messages with opt-in language for those customers that have not yet subscribed to your promotional messages.

2. Where’s the Welcome Mat?

The welcome email can be the most critical message you send. It creates that all-important good first impression and is your first stop toward converting an enthusiastic newcomer into a loyal shopper.

But guess what? Thirty-two percent of the Top 500 retailers don’t send a welcome message. Not much of a good start to the relationship, is it?

Tip: Just do it! Create a welcome message that explains your program, manages expectations, directs subscribers back to your website to set preferences, begin shopping and/or deliver any incentive you might offer.

Tip (Advanced): Expand your basic message to a welcome series that uses multiple messages to increase engagement, obtain additional data and incentive early conversion.

Tafford Uniforms uses a three-message format, where each message has a clearly defined purpose:

Email 1: Welcome to the Tafford community.

Email 2: Thanks for joining (with incentive).

Email 3: Personalize your Tafford experience (invitation to set preferences)

Tafford’s results have been phenomenal, with the series generating a combined revenue 10 times its standard broadcast mailing.

The Future: The next step is moving away from one-size-fits-all welcome series to an “onboarding” program that puts new subscribers into specific programs based on initial Web behavior before opt-in and/or registration preferences. These out-of-the-gate messages not only welcome the new subscriber, but immediately deliver extremely relevant content and offers.

3. Another Untapped Resource: Abandoned Carts

For many retailers, cart abandonment recovery emails are their highest revenue-generating messages. These triggered, highly targeted emails often generate revenue per email of up to 100 times higher than broadcast messages.

Despite these off-the-charts results, only 17 percent of Top 500 retailers are deploying cart emails. A common misperception is that though these messages perform highly, they are of low volume and don’t generate substantial revenue. This perception is only half right.

In my presentation, I cited one case study showing a client that generates nearly 19 percent of its email revenue from only 0.3 percent of its total annual email volume.

Tip: The majority (76%) of retailers (Top 500 plus 130 others that didn’t make Internet Retailer’s cut) that send cart recovery emails send just a single reminder. You’ll gain an even greater competitive edge if you move to a series of multiple emails over the course of a week, beginning within an hour of abandonment.

4. Retailers Up the Ante on Social Sharing

Adding social links to email messages has become a standard practice for Top 500 retailers, with 78 percent doing so, up from 60 percent in the 2009 study.

But here’s the big shift. While most social links a few years ago were for sharing content into social streams, now 71 percent of retailers include only Like/Follow links. An additional 18 percent include both sharing and Like/Follow links.

Tips: Give your readers a reason to commit themselves to a “like” or “follow.” Offer a relevant incentive or promote the benefits in a dedicated email.

You can’t create a “viral” email, but you can redesign your messages to make them more shareworthy—see this Email Insider column for tips.

5. Unsubscribe Process Needs a Revamp, Too

Are you among the two-thirds of retailers who still give subscribers only two opt-out choices: stay or go? That either-or approach can cost you good subscribers who just want to change an address, frequency or preferences.

Tip: Instead, you could potentially retain 20 percent to 30 percent of your opting-out subscribers by adding an unsubscribe management center that offers alternatives, such as changing an email address, preferences, interests or marketing channels, as well as the unsubscribe.

Link to this unsubscribe alternative page in each email message when subscribers click on your “unsubscribe” link.

Study Methodology and Links

Silverpop’s research team subscribed to the email programs of Internet Retailer’s 2010 Top 500 (plus 130 other retailers that didn’t make the top 500 cut) and evaluated each company on 10 factors, including opt-in and opt-out processes, frequency, use of incentives and cart-abandonment emails.

More resources:

• Download the white paper, “2011 Top Retailers Study: Benchmarks, Trends and Tactics for Better Marketing.”
• Download my presentation slides to view example emails for this column.

We all want that small-town feel, where the barista at the local coffee shop knows your order as soon as you walk in or the cashier at the grocery knows your name. Unfortunately, we can’t all live in small towns where we get personalized, one-on-one interactions.

With the rise of social media, though, today’s customers are [...]]]>

We all want that small-town feel, where the barista at the local coffee shop knows your order as soon as you walk in or the cashier at the grocery knows your name. Unfortunately, we can’t all live in small towns where we get personalized, one-on-one interactions.

With the rise of social media, though, today’s customers are starting to expect their dialogues with businesses to more closely resemble conversations with mom-and-pop store owners than monolithic corporate entities. As a result, sending generic marketing and advertising messages to the masses is becoming less effective, making it the perfect time to infuse your marketing content with a more human feel. Here are a few how-tos to get you there:

• Drop the robot language. Do your emails have a consistently sales-y tone? Keep in mind that consumers are living in a social world where they’re checking emails in between checking out the latest tweets or on their mobile devices while they’re standing in line at the grocery store. Pay attention to your consumers’ behaviors and then talk to them like they are human beings—because they are.
• Reevaluate your content. You don’t need more content, just a different kind. Consider looking at your blog, Twitter and Facebook posts or your customer support staff. All can be great resources for a new twist on content.
• Laugh a little. It’s OK to be funny. People like it and respond to it. Adding humor to your messages is an attention-getting way to add personality—but it’s not the only way. Your voice should be the most logical extension of your company and its brand or image.
• Incorporate customer and employee voices. According to Nielsen’s 2009 “Global Online Consumer Survey,” customers and prospects place tremendous value on peer opinions and reviews—more so than on ads. Do you blame them? Add user-generated content like peer reviews and testimonials to give your emails a more human feel—and increase your revenue.

As you start adding personality to your content, remember that “humanization” isn’t just a phase or a new buzzword—it’s a way of doing marketing that brings your customers’ and employees’ personalities and styles into your company messages. Humanization has become an expectation, so lose the “corporate speak” and start talking to people, well, like they are people.

For more tips on humanizing your marketing content, check out these resources:

• Tip sheet: 5 Tips for Humanizing Content and Engaging Recipients
• Blog post: Content Humanization Sets You Apart From The Sizzle-Sellers
• Blog post: Moosejaw Touts ‘Humanization’ e-Marketing
• Email Insider Summit Panel (video): The Humanization of Marketing Content -May 4, 2011
• Client presentation: Humanization of Email Marketing Content –by King Arthur Flour and Moosejaw at Silverpop Client Summit

Today, I’m pleased to have Cuddledown as the subject of our “5 Questions” series designed to share experiences and advice from our most successful Silverpop customers. For those not yet familiar with Cuddledown, it’s a family-owned company based in Maine committed to making and selling the finest in home furnishings. The quality of its products, [...]]]>

Today, I’m pleased to have Cuddledown as the subject of our “5 Questions” series designed to share experiences and advice from our most successful Silverpop customers. For those not yet familiar with Cuddledown, it’s a family-owned company based in Maine committed to making and selling the finest in home furnishings. The quality of its products, combined with its devotion to great customer service, makes it the premiere source for all things cozy.

Matthew Morse, eCommerce Marketing Strategist, Cuddledown

Matthew Morse, Cuddledown’s eCommerce Marketing Strategist, has agreed to tell us what Cuddledown has been up to, including its recent successes implementing a segmentation strategy as well as the benefits of making your emails more “human.”

1) Welcome Matthew!  Cuddledown recently tested a segmentation strategy. What motivated you to start segmenting your emails?

I would say the big factor in pursuing various segmentation strategies for our email program was to leverage opportunities to improve the message relevancy and personalization of our campaigns to increase engagement, allowing  us to increase the variety of email messages distributed without raising list fatigue and churn.

2) Can you tell us a little more about the type of segmentation that you have pursued?

We’ve focused primarily on segmentation strategies surrounding prior purchase history of product categories as well as purchase recency. For example, sending sleepwear-focused messages to previous sleepwear purchasers or purchase follow-up emails to pillow purchasers in which we market complementary products as well as including care instructions for the product.

3) What was your greatest takeaway from your segmentation testing? How have you implemented it into your current program?

The takeaway from our segment testing so far is, as expected, that we’re receiving better results from customers receiving more relevant messages. For the most part we’ve seen better open rates, click-through rates and demand per email generated from our segmentations of previous category purchasers. We have had some mixed results with unsubscribe rates, but usually the more targeted the content is to the purchase history, the more favorable the unsubscribe rates.

Once we determined through our testing that segmentation was a viable strategy for us, we decided to make it part of our holiday email strategy at the end of 2010. By emailing our list more often on a more frequent basis and creating special offers for certain segments of our list, we helped grow fourth-quarter direct sales by 53% over the previous year, while website visits rose by 42% and conversions improved by 3%.

Using Humor in Email: Cuddledown't International Pillow Fight Email

4) Cuddledown has been successful in conveying your brand through humor and humanization in your emails. Can you give us examples of how you weave these qualities into your emails?

We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to better connect with our customers. Using humor in our campaigns is something that keeps the content fresh and unique and provides fun ways to interact with our customers that can also be leveraged by social channels. For example, this year we created a campaign for International Pillow Fight Day where we created a short video about Pillow Ninjas that were unleashed to provide a pillow beating to various employees who incorrectly answered trivia questions. We used email and social channels to promote a pillow discount that was supported by the video content.

In regard to humanization, we use a lot of employee and employee children in our photo shoots, which I believe helps with the humanization of our brand by providing more of a natural look and feel to the imagery. We also try to relate to customer emotions with relevant news topics such as the bed bug epidemic that struck last year. We used that opportunity to respond to those fears and market our products that would help address those problems and hopefully put customers’ minds more at ease.

5) What’s up next for your email program?

We have a lot to learn with segmentation strategies, so we will continue to test and optimize from our results. In the short term we’re working on an abandon cart program and working on initiatives to promote list growth.

We’ve also recently launched revised order confirmation emails through Silverpop Transact that are starting to provide positive results.

I recently attended Silverpop’s Client Summit where I learned a lot about leveraging the features of Engage 8.3 and also heard about customer successes with email marketing that we can benefit from at Cuddledown.

—

Thanks Matthew, it was great seeing you at our Client Summit!

Over the last two weeks a number of email service providers and their customers have announced that their systems were compromised and data was stolen. The security of customer data has quickly risen to become the most important issue facing our industry.

Back in 2010, Silverpop and a small number of our clients faced similar challenges [...]]]>

Over the last two weeks a number of email service providers and their customers have announced that their systems were compromised and data was stolen. The security of customer data has quickly risen to become the most important issue facing our industry.

Back in 2010, Silverpop and a small number of our clients faced similar challenges ourselves. We learned firsthand about the new types of security threats facing all software companies. Over the last four months, we have taken that knowledge and aggressively implemented a range of additional solutions designed to specifically address these new and emerging threats. We have also worked with our customers to educate them on securing their own data and the marketing programs we help them with. Fortunately, we believe our efforts have been successful and we have avoided any additional incidents like 2010. In the coming weeks, we will be sharing some of the details behind a major software update we released last week. Among other things, it contains a new suite of security enhancements that make our customers’ data more secure than ever before.

While we continue to work behind the scenes with law enforcement, a select set of peers and a myriad of third party security experts, I want to extend an offer to collaborate with any of our peers to work together and improve our industry as a whole. Our industry is not the first to deal with determined foes that seek to leverage our customers’ trust for their own gain. But, it is definitely our time in the spotlight right now and I look forward to working together to meet the challenges we face together.

In light of several news articles recently making headlines, we wanted to clarify a situation that we first told you about back in the fall of 2010 when it took place. At that time, Silverpop and a small percentage of our customers were among the victims of an industrywide cyber attack. We very quickly stopped [...]]]>

In light of several news articles recently making headlines, we wanted to clarify a situation that we first told you about back in the fall of 2010 when it took place. At that time, Silverpop and a small percentage of our customers were among the victims of an industrywide cyber attack. We very quickly stopped the attack, notified all customers impacted by the activity and began working with law enforcement and third-party security experts to help identify those responsible and take any additional steps necessary to ensure this did not happen again. We are confident that the compromise last year remains an isolated incident.

While Silverpop never publicly discloses the names of our customers, we do respect their decisions to inform their customers about situations they feel they need to be aware of. Unfortunately, this means we are not in control of the timing of these announcements.

We want to make it clear that there have been no additional incidents involving the security of our customers’ data since the incident we uncovered in the fall of 2010.

For this month’s Silverpop client interview, we are speaking with Louise James, E-commerce Marketing Manager, at VIE at home. VIE at home is an award-winning skin care, makeup, and bath and body products online retailer based in the UK. The company’s philosophy remains the same as it was when it originally launched in 1997 (under its [...]]]>

For this month’s Silverpop client interview, we are speaking with Louise James, E-commerce Marketing Manager, at VIE at home. VIE at home is an award-winning skin care, makeup, and bath and body products online retailer based in the UK. The company’s philosophy remains the same as it was when it originally launched in 1997 (under its previous name Virgin VIE at home): premium products at affordable prices that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home.

VIE at home has a small marketing team and so is always trying to find new ways to drive ROI without adding significantly more time to the team’s workload. That being said, VIE at home has managed to create a successful and engaging email program that makes its brand shine through. Meanwhile, by constantly innovating its program, VIE at home has seen benefits upwards of 200x ROI.

1) Louise, so glad you could join us on our blog. To help us get to know VIE at homea little better, if you could describe your brand in three words, what would you choose?  

Feminine, Fun and Premium

2) In your emails, you tend to inject a lot of personality and imagery. Was this an approach you took since you initially launched your email program, or was it something you learned to do over time?

We’ve always been confident about our tone of voice and what our brand represents to our Customers.  They’re looking for premium products, without a premium price tag and email marketing allows us to conveniently communicate fun, punchy messages which support our core brand values.

Our style of email marketing has definitely developed since we first started using Silverpop in 2007.  We’ve moved away from a more lengthy newsletter approach and today our email communications are more focused on key offers and drivers for the season.   This in turn has had an impact on the other customer communications we produce as a business, in particular our Catalogue, where we take the learnings from email marketing and apply them to the style of language and offers available.

We also find email marketing very beneficial in enhancing the  customer experience with the brand.  Post purchase emails offering hints and tips on how to make the most of their purchase work really well, in particular our post purchase email for Mineral Foundation Make Up which includes a video showing how to make the most of their foundation, and how to apply like an expert.

3) VIE at home uses many different triggered emails to communicate with you customers.  What made you decide to implement triggered emails? Can you give us an overview of the types of triggered emails you send?

Because of the nature of our business (Make Up and Skin Care) sending triggered emails was a very logical step for us.  Encouraging repeat purchase is key and email marketing is a convenient way of sending out a gentle reminder that maybe they need to think about a replacement.  Typically we send out emails 6-8 weeks post purchase asking the Customer if it’s time for a new skin care/make up product.  We’ve had really positive repeat purchase from this, as well as some great anecdotal feedback.

Customer reviews are a feature on our website too and the perfect way to encourage customers new to the brand to try our products.  We always follow up any purchase with a ‘come and review your product’ email.  Our number one bestseller One Step Face Base currently stands at an incredible 647 reviews, with 4.8 stars out of 5!

4) What benefits have you seen with triggered emails?

From a purely financial point of view, the triggered emails offer us a much better return on investment over our normal weekly sales email.  For example, for every £1 we spend on abandoned shopping basket emails, we get approximately £250 back in sales.

This is also a great way for us to maintain a closer relationship with the client … we’ve had some great feedback from Customers regarding our re-purchase reminder email, including one lady on twitter who’s convinced we’re psychic!

Finally as a relatively small E-commerce team, we all find it much more rewarding to be able to develop a targeted marketing programme, that gives the Customer a more personal experience with VIE at home.

5) Not only is VIE at home an online retailer for consumers but you also have a B2B side of your business where you focus on party hosting.  Is there a difference in how you communicate with both audiences?

We have approximately 8000 Consultants in the UK who sell our products in a home party environment.  Tiered at different levels based on experience and performance within the Company, email marketing allows us to effectively segment our Consultants and target them appropriately.

In terms of communication style, we still need to enforce the core brand values and many of the messages are based on sales opportunities that they in turn pass on to our customers.

We also feel that through email marketing, we can communicate key business messages in a more fun and interactive way which is not always possible through other more traditional methods.

Thanks Louise for your insights!

—

If you like more details about their email program, check out the VIE at home case study.

Silverpop is dedicated to our customers’ success, and a strong foundation of best-in-class partnerships is key to ensuring they exceed their goals. We believe in empowering marketers to do what they do best. So, we provide them with comprehensive tools and techniques necessary to reach each and every customer and prospect with the right message [...]]]>

Silverpop is dedicated to our customers’ success, and a strong foundation of best-in-class partnerships is key to ensuring they exceed their goals. We believe in empowering marketers to do what they do best. So, we provide them with comprehensive tools and techniques necessary to reach each and every customer and prospect with the right message at the right time–and we do it in a way that actually makes their lives easier. By offering an open platform that easily integrates with a multitude of complementary technologies, we help marketers more effectively use the information and resources they already have. And by doing so, we help them drive revenue, build customer loyalty and operate more efficiently.

Silverpop is pleased to call some of the industry’s most successful companies our partners, including leading CRM, Web analytics, and related service providers such as Salesforce.com, Coremetrics,  Omniture, Nedstat, Bazaarvoice, and SeeWhy. We also work closely with incredibly sharp strategic consulting firms such as Acquire B2B, The Annuitas Group, Conselltants, Whereoware, Left Brain Marketing, Digital Day Creative Group, Arc Worldwide, Base One and Strateco to name just a few. And in addition to relationships with our existing partners, we continue to engage in dialogues with customers, industry leaders and those on the front lines of email marketing and marketing automation to identify organizations with products and services that would help further strengthen our customers’ programs.

In the coming months we anticipate adding even more great partners to our expanding ecosystem and have increased resources internally to help foster this growth.  In the meantime, we want to thank our stellar line-up of strategic partners who helped us wrap up our  critically acclaimed B2B Marketing University events for 2010. With their help, we provided important insight to eager audiences of B2B marketers around the country, marketers who are looking to provide more and stronger leads to their sales teams and to nurture them toward purchase.  Thanks to all our partners and congratulations on helping advance the knowledge and understanding of successful B2B marketing principles that provide relevance and drive revenue!  We look forward to even greater success in the months and years to come.

Beginning in 2011, we are starting a regular interview series that allows our readers to get to know some of our most successful Silverpop clients.  It is called “5 questions” and it is a  great way to get a quick overview of aspects of our clients’ email programs as well as some sage advice from [...]]]>

Beginning in 2011, we are starting a regular interview series that allows our readers to get to know some of our most successful Silverpop clients.  It is called “5 questions” and it is a  great way to get a quick overview of aspects of our clients’ email programs as well as some sage advice from the pros!

Today, we are getting to know Jeff Cloud, who is the Director of Customer Relationship & Mobile Marketing at General Growth Properties (GGP). GGP owns 160 shopping centers in 43 states, so chances are that you have been in a mall owned by GGP if you live in the United States.

Jeff Cloud, Director of Customer Relationship & Mobile Marketing, General Growth Properties

1) Jeff, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions today. Can you tell us a little bit more about your role at GGP and what your team does?

My role focuses on the database-driven programs we develop within the CRM department designed to acquire, engage, and grow customers through incentives and interaction.

On the consumer side, my team leverages email and mobile channels of an affinity marketing program, branded The Club, to drive traffic and sales to the thousands of retail and restaurant partners located within our network of 160 shopping centers nationwide.  In any given month our team receives hundreds of requests from corporate, field marketing, and tenants to distribute marketing messages to our database.  In an effort to hold true to our brand promise to deliver exclusive promotions, the best discounts, and mall event announcements, our team must review each request and determine the best way to deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, and on the right platform.

Dovetailing off of the successes with our consumer efforts, our department will also be launching three exciting B2B initiatives in 2011.

2) How does your team make my shopping center experience even better through email/mobile? What can I expect if I join a shopping center-specific loyalty program?

With email, we are working to deliver only the most relevant content in an easy-to-read format no matter what platform you’re using to view it.  We’re also providing immediate and tangible benefits from day one with an exclusive offer in our welcome email, and we’re surprising members down the road with a special birthday present from their preferred shopping center.

The Club is General Growth Properties loyalty program

Mobile has allowed us to add two very exciting enhancements for members of The Club.  First, our In-Mall Mobile Activation program installs promotional collateral in high traffic areas of the center asking shoppers to text a keyword to our shortcode for a special offer good for that day only.  For example, Stir Crazy worked with us at a Chicago area mall and offered shoppers a free appetizer with entree purchase when they sent STIR to a specific shortcode.

We also launched The Club’s Mobile App this year and made it available for iPhone and Android-based phones.  We created this app to be fun and highly functional.  The app delivers a consistent experience a member would have with our email program by delivering the best discounts and mall event announcements.  We also added a store directory and detailed map of the mall with GPS capabilities to help customers navigate the mall and shop more efficiently.  On the fun side, we added The Club’s Play-A-Day, which is a game users can play for a chance to win prizes every day.

3) You are very focused on mobile technologies in your role at GGP. How do you think mobile technologies will affect email marketing in the next several years?

Mobile will have a very positive affect on email, and maybe not even over the next several years but probably over just the next couple years.  Mobile will allow brands to seamlessly integrate into the hectic lifestyles of our customers, force us to think through every step of the consumer experience, and improve the overall relationship with our customers.  With Smartphone market share exceeding 50% in 2011, email will be accessed on mobile devices just as frequently as SMS.  The two, email and mobile, will continue to intertwine with email providing great pre- and post-sale messaging while SMS or APPs will provide superb in-store experience and opportunities for brands at the moment of truth.

4) Jeff,  you recently attended the Email Insider Summit in Park City, UT. Besides honing your skiing and/or snowboarding skills, how was the event?  Is there anything new learned that you could share with us?

The Email Insiders Summit was great!  While not improving my mad skiing skills, I was sharing thoughts with some of the best in the industry. There were several pages of notes from the event that I will reference as we look to continuously improve our email program in 2011, but there were two areas that are top-of-mind.  One, I want to incorporate an opt-down strategy which will proactively request members to set their preferences for things such as content categories and frequency.  Why wait until someone is hitting unsubscribe to ask if they would like to receive fewer messages or different content?

And the second item was what I heard during the ISP panel.  ISPs aren’t solely looking at your IP reputation, but at the engagement levels you have with your list of subscribers.  With this piece of information, I want to make sure we are doing everything we can to improve engagement with our subscribers.

5) Last question for you…what are your top three favorite things about email marketing?

1.       The ability to dynamically customize and personalize a message for millions of unique consumers.

2.       The numbers don’t lie.

3.       Your subscribers aren’t afraid to tell you how they really feel (i.e., unsubscribe, spam button).

—

Thanks to Jeff for sharing details on GGP’s initiatives and plans for 2011. For those of you interested in keeping in touch with Jeff, you can follow him on Twitter: @jeffreycloud

I just completed an exciting, fun-filled, and yes, tiring, week at Dreamforce 2010, and I am amazed how Salesforce can continue to make huge strides around everything cloud computing.  What was once a purely SFA-centric technology show has morphed into one of the hottest overall tech events in the industry—no small feat!

There has already [...]]]>

I just completed an exciting, fun-filled, and yes, tiring, week at Dreamforce 2010, and I am amazed how Salesforce can continue to make huge strides around everything cloud computing.  What was once a purely SFA-centric technology show has morphed into one of the hottest overall tech events in the industry—no small feat!

There has already been volumes written on their recent announcements, like the upcoming launch of Database.com, the acquisition of Heroku, and pushing further into the Services Cloud with a new IT services offering called RemedyForce, based off BMC software’s Remedy solution.  With Salesforce moving even more aggressively into the platform vendor arena, I am excited, as an ISV partner, about the potential this provides to build additional Silverpop solutions on Force.com.  In addition to the excitement around Dreamforce, now is also an exciting time on the marketing automation front in general. Below are my three key take-aways as they relate to demand generation in the new Cloud2 era:

1.    Chatter finds a home:  Launched just last year with somewhat of a lukewarm reception, Chatter has begun to really deliver on its promise.  At Dreamforce, Chatter was the underlying basis for networking, planning, and dialogue at the event itself as part of a custom-built app. Participants could attend sessions, discuss topics, and dialogue with like-minded individuals to really make the most of their Dreamforce experience.  But beyond just this one use case, leveraging the Chatter stream for sales people to follow prospect activities as part of managing their opportunities has also become a practical reality . For those organizations where a sales team is fully engaged in leveraging Chatter for collaborating, pushing lead updates into the stream will become the norm.  This will greatly open the door for external information to enter the business stream.  Look for more in this area as Chatter gains additional adoption in SF implementations.

2.    B2B Email = Marketing Automation:  Email for B2B markets is also rapidly evolving.  Make no mistake, the email channel is alive and well, and Salesforce customers are quickly learning that sending batch and blast email campaigns is no longer enough. Instead, they are looking to quickly graduate to full marketing automation processes. At Dreamforce, sessions on lead nurturing, including automating campaigns with triggered emails, lead alerting, and built-in lead scoring were highly attended, including a session on The Art of Nurturing by yours truly.  What was clear from the questions and ongoing dialogue was that email best practices are in high demand, as companies look to crawl, walk, and then run with marketing automation.  Understanding better the deliverability challenges, email content layout, timing, and content optimization will be required to excel in B2B email marketing powered by marketing automation solutions.  Look for more and deeper email discussions at next year’s event.

3.    Data-as-a-Service:  Last year’s acquisition of Jigsaw by Salesforce is helping spawn the integration of data services directly within sales and marketing processes.   Traditionally used for one-to-one sales prospecting, third-party contact data such as Jigsaw, NetProspex, D&B, and various other AppExchange partners provide a much needed ability to supplement opted-in lead information.  As this data enhancement service becomes more and more tightly integrated into the sales/marketing process, marketers will have a tremendous opportunity to boost their scoring and targeting approaches, without sacrificing permission-based marketing best practices.

As always, hats off to the entire Salesforce team, and their partner community for making this year’s Dreamforce event something to remember and we look forward to many exciting new advancements in the year to come.

The report, “B2B Interactive Spend Will Double by 2014,” by analyst Michael Green predicts that B2B interactive marketing spend will climb from $2.3 billion in 2009 to nearly $4.8 billion [...]]]> A recent report from Forrester shows B2B marketing spend doubling in four years. This is a great sign for this new and exciting area of marketing. 

The report, “B2B Interactive Spend Will Double by 2014,” by analyst Michael Green predicts that B2B interactive marketing spend will climb from $2.3 billion in 2009 to nearly $4.8 billion in 2014. Green attributes the rise in part to a challenging economy, which has forced marketers to clamp down on expensive offline tactics in favor of measurable, ROI-driven online channels such as paid search, display media, SEO, email, social and mobile marketing.

After attending TED for the last nine [...]]]> I just got back from my favorite week of the year–the annual TED conference held in Long Beach, Calif. TED—short for Technology, Entertainment, Design—is a gathering of movers and shakers dedicated to “ideas worth spreading” such as those above. The conference is educational, inspiring and a ton of fun.

After attending TED for the last nine years, I was struck last week by how much social media and social marketing are changing the way ideas spread. When I first began attending, we were all still marveling at the Internet and what it might do. Last week showed how far and fast we have come–the Internet and social marketing are enabling ideas to spread in ways that we couldn’t have imagined 10 years ago. The visions and projects sponsored by the TED foundation are as noble as they’ve ever been, but their ability to drive a community and engage supporters has changed entirely.

As one of the few marketers there, I found myself in amazingly cool conversations with doctors, politicians, educators  and scientists as we talked about how even the most basic principles of online marketing could further transform their ability to bring their amazing visions to the world.

Often, when people think of marketing, they immediately (and sadly) think of its lowest forms—unwanted and irrelevant communications about products of questionable value. After my week at TED, I was reminded that marketing is a smart way to tell any story better–even the stories that will change the world.