Disqus - Latest Comments for SAMRPath

Re: Email Marketing and #2 Pencils: Simple Wins

SAMRPath — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:48:03 -0000

Thanks, DJ. Good analogy. I agree that marketers do tend to overthink, over produce our concepts. At the end of the day, our email programs should simpley HELP SUBSCRIBERS.

Help them be smarter, save money, look cool in front of their kids, be special, get a raise, be more productive, make money, be beautiful, look younger, have more fun.

When we help subscribers, they engage, respond, buy our stuff, tell their friends and remain loyal.

Can marketing really be as simple as respecting your customers? I believe so. And the best job for marketers is to be advocates for our subscribers. Let's make it work for them.

Bring on the pencils!

Best,
Stephanie

@StephanieSAM
Stephanie Miller
Return Path Inc.

Re: How Do You Reason or Argue with a Mob?

SAMRPath — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:02:14 -0000

Good post, Jeff. A really hard question. I think that the best strategy is always to embrace the opposition and difuse the impact. If the other side is trying to distract the conversation, stop that one, and start the right one. It could be that local forums could work really well if the Obama camp got more supporters in the room and kept the conversation on point. The other side won't stop stamping and yelling just b/c we stop. We have to keep the balance of noise in check.

Stephanie
@StephanieSAM

Re: PR and Email Marketing: A Marriage Made In Heaven

SAMRPath — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:12:52 -0000

Great post, Jeff and DJ! Thanks.

PR is (and always has been) marketing - it's marketing a company's news or value to a (sometimes hostile and reticent) audience. Email subscribers may be more like harried journalists than we imagine.

With the overflow of marketing messages in all our inboxes and the increased need for email marketers to break through, what we as marketers can learn from the more demanding PR space is actually quite instructive.

Email marketing is always about delighting the subscriber. No matter what you sell.

THANKs for the good food for thought.

Stephanie

Re: Happy Earth Day: Go Green With Email :: Return Path Blog

SAMRPath — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:37:28 -0000

Thanks, Jay. I like how you make the case for each of us to send less personal email. Perhaps "going green" is also another reason why all email marketers must commit to lower the frequency (which seems out of control these days) - and only send email messages when the content is relevant. Or, at least to give subscribers a choice.

Wasted marketing is wasteful -- whether it's paper or digital. All marketing consumes resources -- including human resources -- so working harder at making those resources pay off is important. No matter what the medium.

Thanks for the comment!

Re: Return Path

SAMRPath — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:19:26 -0000

Great insight, Proebuck, thanks. I love that last "prediction." I certainly hope so, and believe that now is our chance, as email marketers, to grab the iron while it's hot. There is a lot of attention and pressure on the email channel to perform, despite it's already strong ROI. And so if we can show how email plays well in the sandbox by adjusing our content and contact strategies... then we win! And so do our subscribers, which is the whole point.

Thanks for the comment!

Re: Return Path - Will I See You at the Email Evolution Conference?

SAMRPath — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:53:45 -0000

Great news, DJ! Glad you are going to be there, and I look forward to you and Jason Baer of Convince & Convert presenting as part of the DMA/eec panel with me!

Everyone else, come heckle DJ ;)

Re: Return Path - Return Path's New Year Community Challenge: Week 1

SAMRPath — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:48:23 -0000

Thanks for sharing your experience with the link, Adrienne! Anyone else have a different (or similar) story?

To address your question, I've seen some great cross promotions done in many Welcome Messages. Two that stand out are Sephora (celebrates the depth and breadth of the product line) and LifeScript (invites consideration of additional subscriptions). Cisco is a B2B marketer who cross promotes a little, but only to mention that there are resources around lots of topical areas. An appropriate soft sell, I believe.

I think there is also a bit of a risk in cross promotion, depending on your producct. Remember that you may have little interaction with the subscriber at this point. Don't distract them from the original purpose - welcoming them to the email program and celebrating its benefits. Too much hard sell can be off-putting, and distracting. It may make subscribers feel that you are not truly thankful for their sign up, and set a tone for too much selling before any benefit is provided.

What do others think on this one?

Re: Return Path - Return Path's New Year Community Challenge: Week 1

SAMRPath — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:16:59 -0000

Thanks, Wendy and that is a totally fair compromise.

Perhaps the way to think about this is to try to paint a holistic picture of the impact. If management is worried about unsubscribe rates spiking, then track that (potential) increase, but also track things like conversions and click throughs of the remaining new subscribers in the first month. Track complaints on your welcome message, too.. If the former goes up and the latter goes down, then making the unsubscribe button more prominent may be having an overall positive effect, even if it means a few fewer new subscribers.

Also, if your unsubscribe rate spikes on your welcome message, it's time to review your benefit/invitation on the sign up page. Are people signing up for one thing and getting another? Is the welcome message not synchronized strongly enough to the offer?

Re: Return Path - The Risks (and Sometimes Rewards) of Not Following Best Practices

SAMRPath — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:31:28 -0000

ClaesT,

Thanks so much for this perspective. I actually heard from a few anti-spam advocates (including one that works for Return Path) with the same comment. So clearly my post was not clear!

Of course Return Path wants our clients and all marketers to follow best practices. We want this not just for altruistic reasons, although those are significant, but because it's good business.

The only way to improve revenue from the email marketing channel is to create great subscriber experiences. And so everything we do, even if it SEEMS to provide value in the short term, affects that experience, and our potential ROI from the channel.

My colleague J.D. Falk posted about why following best practices is a good idea. I totally concur and say so in the post. However, it's one thing to hang out in the Ivory Tower of best practices. It's another to be a marketer out in the real world who is often forced to test the impact of earning that extra revenue this quarter, even if we know it could impact revenue in future quarters.

So it is to that reality that my post attempts to speak. If you must test sending to an inactive file, do it wisely and with the least amount of risk. And, be sure you can track the results so you can make a case for never doing it again.

In this example, you can see that sending to the inactive file cost the marketer about 4X in sending costs (the file size is bigger) but only for a 10% lift in click throughs. That is one way to make the argument that it's not worth it.

But typically, we marketers can't make that case unless we have the data. My apologies if the post was not clear on that point.

Thanks so much for your reply and good insight.