Keep Your Email Marketing Subscribers
6/23/2009 by Jack Burnett
Email marketing programs are a great way to retain and
engage customers, dealers and manufacturing
representatives. They give companies a very
cost-effective way to communicate their message, plus comScore
found that there is a 4.4% sales conversion on eCommerce websites
from emails in the United States.
Email marketing is the last marketing tactic companies are
cutting during this recession. However, with the increases in
companies sending emails, people are becomming more and more
selective about what they want to receive. According to an
Epsilon and ROI Research study, 14% of e-mail subscribers
in North America unsubscribe from opt-in e-mails
frequently - and 55% do so occasionally.
The number one reason people unsubscibe is because the content
is not relevant and useful. If you are sending email blasts
to your house list without careful consideration about the
relevance of the information to all those people, then chances are
you are causing some people to drop off your emal marketing
program. Segmenting your email lists to receive targeted
communications based upon user preferences or past behavior is one
way to send the most useful information. When
you integrate your email marketing metrics with your eCommerce
data and your CRM database, you are able to segment your list
wisely.
The next reason people unsubscribe is because they receive a
company's emails too frequently. This ties into the relevance
of the information, but shows that you need to plan the email
communications for a calendar year. You can also help avoid
this issue by explaining the freqency of emails when people opt-in,
and by offering options on how often to receive an email.
Privacy concerns and the belief that their email address will be
shared or sold ia a top reason people unsubscribe. Your
website needs to state clearly what your privacy policy is and how
to contact you regarding questions. A link to the policy
should be clearly visible on your website page for opting-into your
email program. The link should also appear on your emails too
- for those people who received a forwarded email from a
friend.
Another reason is that people just don't remember signing up for
the emails. Sending a confirmation email when people opt-in
with information about the communications can help. Analyzing
the email metrics and incorporating tactics to target people not
responding can help get people to engage with you.
Keep your customers in your email marketing
program by addressing these top reasons causing people to
unsubsribe. Implemeting an email marketing program requires
planning for the website and the program itself, and
crafting each email requires analysis and consideration about the
relevance of the message to each person.
Online Marketing and Social Media
6/02/2009 by Jacqueline Harris
I recently attended a webinar that focused on the reasons why
online marketing makes more sense now than ever before and why
Social Media (i.e. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook) have such an
impact on businesses that are staying abreast of the current
trends.
It's a given in marketing that you need to be where your customers
are. So where are your customers these days? More and more, they're
spending their leisure time online, either for personal reasons,
checking e-mail or managing their online profiles. But they're also
checking out products, services and networking with
colleagues.
While the audience we cater to participate in the Manufacturing
Value Chain, it seems that even CEO's, COO's, etc. are getting
involved with eBusiness marketing. Online marketing is
rapidly becoming a part of small and mid-market company's efforts
in eBusiness. So, the question is asked, is this new
eBusiness, online Social Media hype really worth the time - I'm
sure you would have a different response than your boss, but,
nevertheless, more and more of your peers are reaching out and
touching others via the internet.
Here's a few thoughts for manufacturing businesses or
companies participating in the Manufacturing Value Chain...
To make this new rave work for you, do your research. Have
a good sense of your target market. Placement/position is key
in traditional media and the same is true online - if your
customers or prospects are using popular social media such as
Facebook or Twitter, you should be using them as well.
It's time to Adapt to change... Successful Manufacturing companies
do not abandon their marketing strategies or increase their
marketing budgets in a recession; they adapt them. I am happy
to say that TwinEngines opted to participate in the social media
craze and was happy to see many of our clients and partners were
already on board.
One of the most important phrases that stood out to me during
the webinar was "While social media enables your news and
marketing to become viral in nature and gain momentum, if you're
not careful, it also allows other messages to gain
momentum". The example given was a popular food chain
prank - Two employees of this popular chain filmed and posted a
YouTube video of a prank on a customer's food. According to
reports, the video made its way to as many as 500,000 would-be
customers with the help of social media. While both employees
lost their jobs and are facing charges, the company's decision to
defer comment initially resulted in its brand and online reputation
taking the bigger hit. All in all, Social Media is great,
however, monitor what you publish and protect your brand.
It was recently said that emailing is the "90's", Blogging and
Tweeting are taking over.
Blogging is another form of social media that's on the rise.
Industry veterans with years of experience in business,
delivered a fresh, direct and honest eBusiness perspective on new
and emerging web technologies and trends in social media and social
networking. With a particular focus on the Manufacturing
industry, they found that business leaders involved in the
Manufacturing Value Chain were focused on business strategies,
revenue and profit keeping their focus on the bottom line.
After a quick survey, many of those business leaders found that
customers and prospects were interested in their view point and
wanted to hear from them, not just in an email. Creating a
blog should begin a conversation between you and interested
parties; Make blogging an informal way to present your thoughts and
get feedback.
In today's increasingly competitive environment, I believe it is
critical for manufacturing businesses to deliver reliable, and
cost effective, products to the market, however, it's equally
important that you stay abreast of the ever-changing world of
eBusiness and Social Media, your clients and competitors
are....
Carbon Emissions and Email Marketing
5/14/2009 by Jack Burnett
I just read Eric Taub's article on planning for the
cap and trade of carbon emissions, and then I see a report on
how spam emails contribute to global warming. I didn't
consider TwinEngines having much of a carbon footprint,
being a firm that advises on optimizing the manufacturing value
chain and builds IT-based solutions. But we do partner with
email service providers and we do send email newsletters to our
community, and we do receive and deal wth a lot of emails.
According to "The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam Report,"
released by the security firm McAfee, the annual
energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion
kilowatt-hours (kwh).
Chart by McAfee, Inc.
To put it into perspective, eMarketer says that is equal to the
electricity used in over two million US homes - and creates
the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars using 2
billion gallons of gasoline. eMarketer also reports
that nearly 80% of the energy waste created by spam is due to
people deleting it or trying to find
legitimate emails.
At our annual event for small and mid-market companies, Eric
spoke about carbon emissions from transportation, electricity usage
and other facets found in the manufacturing industry. He
didn't mention carbon footprints from generating or just deailing
with spam emails. No matter what side of the debate you
are on, carbon emissions is becomming a business issue that may
very well provide benefits to your company if you are prepared
for cap and trade laws when they appear.
First, if you are not taking advantage of email marketing for
promotional offers and to talk about about your products,
services and your company, then you are most likely missing an
opportunity to generate more business. If you are using other
means such as direct mail, TV, and print, then you may
be not be achieving the cost savings and ROI associated
with email marketing.
For those of us marketing our products and services with email
newsletters though, now there is this issue of the carbon footprint
directly from your emails and indirectly from the email service
provider you choose (If you send your own email blasts from your
PC, please call immediately - 404-522-4262!). Are you
following best practices to generate and manage email lists
and interacting with your customers via email? Are you in
compliance with the Can-Spam Act? Is your web site a souce for
spam emails? Do you filter out spam emails going to your
employees?
There are steps a company can take to contribute in the quest to
reduce spam emails, save energy, reduce carbon emissions and thus
save our planet! McAfee recommends, as a first step, that
businesses instal effective spam filters. They estimates that
spam filtering saves 135 terawatt-hours of electricity each
year - or taking 13 million cars off the road.
Death and Digital Property
5/12/2009 by Jack Burnett
What happens to your digital property when you pass away?
A morbid topic, I know; but it is a growing question
people have to consider with the plethora of online accounts,
email addresses, Facebook pages, and other social media information
we all have on the Internet. It was the topic of an NPR radio
program involving LegacyLocker.com, a new website where you can
store login credentials and inform relatives what should be
done with your online assets. That's right, there is a
company that will safely secure your digital property and allow
access to your loved ones. So when you are gone - but not
forgotten - you can ensure that the persons you want access to your
emails has it.
This has become an issue elevated to national radio coverage
because wills typically do not protect your digital assets, and
most web sites have little or no provisions for a friend or
relative to transfer the account information. After listening
to the program, I considered all the logins to banks, brokers,
service providers, my Facebook page, LinkedIn account, Twitter
conversations, my photos and music stored online, etc. I'm
not sure I need LegacyLocker yet, but I do realize that I need to
plan, collect, organize and secure this information.
Then I considered the small and mid-market companies I work with
on a daily basis. Typically these are family-owned and
operated, sometimes with online personal and business accounts
co-mingled and serving dual purposes. What happens when the
company founder or owner leaves this earth? Does the
progression plan include access to the company Facebook page or
LinkedIn account? Is the login to a partner's co-branded
online service in a secure place or would you need access to their
email account to get the forgotten password? Is there one
place where accounts and login credentials to online assests are
stored; if so, how is it protected?
At TwinEngines, we built our company Intranet on the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server platform. Besides being our
repository for HR information, company work documents and our
knowlegbase to support our business, we have created a place
to keep account information for our vendors, suppliers, partners
and our social media sites. Our customer extranet built on
the same SharePoint technology, stores information about each
customer and the services we provide. All this information is
secured with login access tied to our Active Directory accounts,
and backed up nightly as part of our database backup process.
So as employees come and go or change job positions, we manage our
Active Directoy network accounts and access to company digital
assests as part of our new employee orientation, termination and
job transfer processes. Access to our digital assets stored
in SharePoint are protected without any other special efforts.
Are your company's digital assets protected when key employees
leave for another company or pass away? It's not a pleasant
thought, but one that has to be considered. Do you have a
plan, and what technology do you have to store
information that is safe and secure? Fortunately, the
technology piece to the puzzle may be closer than you think. A lot
of small and mid-market companies do not realize that they own
Microsoft SharePoint already, since it is bundled with their
Microsoft Server software. For larger companies SharePoint is
included with their enterprise agreement with
Microsoft.
Read more information about SharePoint here.