Marketing to email unsubscribers

To the typical email marketer, if someone unsubscribes from your email list you’ve lost them. This may indicate that they are less interested than someone else, or maybe they simply are cleaning the inbox out. The fact is what makes email marketing most effective is the little things. Unsubscribes is an example of those little things. It is one of the things that most people don’t put much thought into when building their email marketing strategy.

I recently unsubscribed from the Barnes & Noble newsletter. I joined through a rewards program and found it interesting to see what new products were released, etc. but it just wasn’t something I was paying that much attention to. For this reason, I decided to leave their digital family. Incidentally I purchase from them almost weekly so I don’t think they are mad about this.

First, they gave me options. Maybe I just wanted certain topics, or maybe I only wanted certain frequency? This made me feel like they respected my desire to keep my inbox clean but still receive information from them that I wanted or when I wanted it.

Email Marketing: give options of frequency or topic.

Next, after I had made my decision, they gave me a kind salutation and a convenient button to shop for more products.

Invite them to shop some more

It was by impulse that I almost clicked that button. If I had been remotely ready to make a purchase I would have done so. The fact is, putting these simple additions into the email marketing path increase sales. It doesn’t mean that everyone makes another purchase, it just means that some do – and it costs no more than the cost of the Indianapolis Marketing company to think of all these things and implement them.

This is the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of little elements that can not only increase buyer loyalty and sales, but extend the customer experience you deliver in person, directly to your customers inbox.

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At redwall LIVE, we help our customers to establish email marketing and social strategies that deliver a return on investment, and not just a message. We believe that tangible and measurable results should be delivered to our clients at all times. If you are considering your digital marketing strategy, at any point of the process, please contact us. We are committed to quality and to your  company’s long term success.

Shifting to Permission Based Marketing

Companies that are growing have to continue to market their brand and product to keep the business coming in. Permission marketing is a term that is talked about in reference to social media, email marketing, and many data driven methods. Set Godin Says:

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.

It recognizes the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn their attention

I speak more about this under relationship marketing in a later blog.

What do you do when you have a long history of outbound marketing and you want to shift your focus to a permission based model? Well I have an active model to discuss on this one.

We took on a client late last year that had a long history of outbound marketing such as direct mail. They would get leads from direct mail and then sell them, then send out more mail to repeat the process. As much as hip marketers would like to say that this is a tired old way of doing things, it is still a valid method and is producing results. Still, a permission based approach will strengthen your brand and your response.

So what is permission marketing?

When people are marketed to in a movie theater, via radius based direct mail lists, through billboards, etc. they did not necessarily permit the advertisement. Clearly, if I subscribe to your blog, sign up for your mailing or email list, etc. then that level of permission says that I am qualified within your market and interested in hearing your message.

How do you shift to a permission based model?

With our client, instead of slashing successful efforts, we are using the outbound marketing to invite people for a deeper marketing relationship. By partnering with a non profit, we’ve offered a dollar for everyone that will pledge their support through subscribing to the website. YES, We (our client) are donating the dollar for every subscriber. This simple approach is building good will with the community, not being too “on sale now” oriented and is attracting people that will support the brand because of what they stand for.

This is one of 5 ways that we have implemented an “ask” for their permission to connect with them further. The result is response rates far higher and marketing costs far lower. The way to shift to permission based marketing is simple… ASK FOR PERMISSION. The value will be tremendous over time. The greatest way to measure the value of your brand is the size of the permission based marketing database.

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redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that creates campaigns, Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.

Email Marketing: What You NEED to Know after the Epsilon Debacle

The Email Marketing breech has been all over the news. It seems like many of our favorite brands were the victims of this egregious hacking of what might be one of the largest “vaults” of opted in email addresses.

In the marketing world, email marketing is more important than ever before. More and more consumers are using email as a major form of communication, task management, social media access and storage for coupons. Even with all the talk about social media in the blogi-sphere (and twitter-verse) it is still impossible to escape the fact that more people use email than any other medium for digital communication and sharing content (according to Read Write Web). The truth is, you can’t create your account without an email anyway.

So what does the tyrant that hacked Epsilon‘s client databases have access to? How can you protect your company from being subject to the same kind of breech?

For the most part, they only have access to what your customers might now give them. The biggest threat is the criminal mind blasting the lists using the identity of the client to gain information that they don’t have. Of the several large companies that have been affected, several are banks and financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Capital One and others. If you’re bank sent you a message prompting you to log in, many consumers would click and log in without even thinking to verify it is not a phishing site. The same kind of danger is with posing e-commerce sites, but what can you do to help ensure your customers aren’t affected? Here are some practices from the marketing point of view that will also protect your customers from being fraudulent damage.

1. Unique design and practices. It’s well designed email that generates high response rates, but it’s also a branding effort. If you are consistently building your brand with a unique format, and design presentation, something that deviates from this will trigger a red flag for your customers.

2. Trust reputable and knowledgable marketing providers. Let’s be fair, Epsilon is one of the worlds leading providers. They are definitely knowledgable. This only alerts us to the fact that it is important to protect your sensitive information, and make sure it is in the hands of professionals who know the ins and outs, and how to respond in the rare case of a crisis.

3. Reassure your customers that you value the relationship. Inevitably, people will be more protective of their email after a news story like this. Perhaps the most important thing marketers need to be aware of is that the standard for the level of trust needed to gain a direct marketing relationship is likely higher. Show this trustworthiness in your marketing practices. Don’t share your list from one division to another, allow customers the opportunity to opt in or out, and use the best resources for protecting that information.

We (At Indianapolis Marketing Company redwall LIVE) believe permission based marketing is more valuable and important than any other form. It’s important to protect this model especially when dealing with people’s personal information.

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redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that Provides Campaigns Strategies and Tools for Successful Marketing.

Can Email Marketing and Social Media be Separated? Indianapolis Marketing

Today Skyline Exhibits (The Indy Trade Show Display Franchise) had an event about integrating Social Media and Online Marketing into trade shows and events. Joel Book from the Email Marketing Software Company ExactTarget was speaking on the topic of using Email, integrated with Social Media and applying it to events or trade shows. His content was brilliant. I wanted to share some info and a personal review of the seminar.

I was reminded of several points that I want to highlight here. Social Media cannot be separated from email marketing completely, you have to create and sign into your social accounts with your email. As Indianapolis Marketing Company, we’ve learned that social media is one of the best ways to build email subscribers. This is because we find that social networks represent different levels of engagement with your target audience weather you are a B2B Marketing or marketing to Consumers makes no difference. There is a level of interest that varies statistically with the platform. The deepest level of engagement is when someone is subscribed to your email list. Think of it this way. Most people feel like they have to tend to every email but not every tweet or status. Here are some points to remember:

1. Create Content for Email by Giving Customers a Voice. Allow customers to offer reviews and feedback that is featured in your email. This starts with social media and is then shared again with social media to gain more subscribers.

2. Some surveys show that 75% of Social Media Users have said that email was the best way to communicate with them. Building trust and value with your social content can be the road to attracting listeners into your email database.

3. With Social media you own the database. Since social media terrain is always changing, your Myspace database is no longer as valuable as it once was. You’re email database is not subject to the same kind of changes.

4. Facebook Fans Like Free Stuff, Twitter Follows are statistically a more savvy professional, and more knowledgeable on using the internet to get or find what they want. For this reason, a twitter follower is considered more engaged.

5. An email marketing strategy should be just that, a strategy, or part of one. It is important to know who your audience is, what information they want and when they want to get it.

These points impact your ROI directly when it comes to your social and email marketing efforts. I would argue that integrated them together – especially done skillfully – consistently increases your results. My closing question is: can email marketing and social media be separated?

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redwall LIVE is an Indianapolis Marketing Company that provides Campaigns, Strategies and Tools for successful marketing.