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Yesterday we posted a Q&A session with Sally Lowery of Bronto Software on trigger email campaigns. Today we have 2 real-world examples from Amazon. These emails followed up the purchase of a camcorder:

• Amazon doesn’t wait for you to come back to the site to push recommendations at you. 10 days post-purchase,

• Notice the low price point relative to the camcorder (about 10% of purchase price)
• Notice the 2 star customer rating - not too persuasive, eh?
• It would be more persuasive to auto-recommend the highest rated relevant accessory, with a snippet from and direct link to the most helpful positive review
• The link to “improve your recommendations” is a good idea, especially if it was just a gift. Adjusting preferences now means more relevant suggestions next time you log into Amazon.com

• 15 days post-purchase, Amazon sends another plea to buy more

• Gone are the star ratings
• Amazon’s pushing categories, not specific products - there are 3 product links without descriptions, and links to category
• Mix of price points, software can be 3x the price of the purchased product
• Includes service plans
• Includes opt-out: “We hope you found this message to be useful. However, if you’d rather not receive future e-mails of this sort from Amazon.com, please opt-out here.”

Now, I understand these are automated recommendations and crafting 1-to-1 cross-sell emails is not efficient. But this email could be a lot more persuasive if it explained more about how these would enhance the ownership experience of the purchased product - and from a fellow customer’s mouth, not the retailer. For the tripod featured in both emails, there’s a video review that 46/47 people found helpful.

Wouldn’t that make for a killer trigger email?

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Original post by Linda Bustos

I recently caught up with Bronto Software’s Online Marketing Manager Sally Lowery, Online Marketing Manager for Bronto Software to chat about trigger-based email campaigns. Think sending welcome emails, reminders to repurchase or hey, “you haven’t been interacting with us for a while and we’d like to win you back” emails.

Q: Can you explain trigger-based email messaging?

A: A real-time message, or triggered message, is one that is generated based on a meaningful change or event in a customer behavior or profile. Trigger-based messages can create a truly relevant email campaign to customers that yields a greater ROI, because it is a customer-facilitated exchange that triggers the campaign.

Q: What are some things to consider when implementing a trigger-based email program?

A: To be successful with a trigger-based automated email program, consider the following:

Define Business Rules. A well defined trigger-based program can create a significant return. Be certain to recognize where it’s appropriate to create trigger-based campaigns and where there may be little benefit. Creating a business rule that sends a transactional message that includes an up-sell opportunity only makes sense if the product that is promoted matches the customer’s interest.

Set Frequency Limits. Don’t oversend. After you have established your business rules, review your plan and determine instances where a customer may be sent too high a frequency. If your email service provider enables a frequency limit, take advantage. You don’t want to send three trigger-based campaigns to a customer in one day…or possibly even one week.

Remember Recency. When was the last time the customer or prospect received something from you? If you are able, create business rules around when your prospect or customer was last sent a message.

Think customer first. What frequency of trigger-based campaigns will not bombard your customer or prospect leaving them fatigued from over-sending? What promotional opportunities make sense: cross-sell, up-sell, discounts, free shipping? The possibilities are limitless for how you will use trigger-based email campaigns, but always be cognizant of the impact on the customer. You want it to be a positive experience that reinforces trust.

Keep it simple. Your automated plan should mirror your brand. Once you’ve done the tricky part of configuring your trigger-based message, you’ll be able to learn and test on the fly, so pepper in new business rules and continue to polish messages.

Q: Can you give some examples of trigger-based email campaigns?

A: Trigger-based email programs can include transactional, recurring, and threshold triggers. The most commonly used are transactional and threshold.

Transactional triggers: Messages that are based on a direct transaction with a customer target such as a purchase, profile update, opt-in, or conversion are an underutilized tool in the world of email marketing. Think brand reinforcement, promotional opportunities, and trust recognition.

Recurring triggers: These messages are based on the customer’s profile. It could be a simple birthday trigger or a more complex product re-order message. For recurring triggers, the opportunities are limitless, but be cautious as these are easily the most recognized place for over-mailing.

Q: How will these trigger-based email campaigns help e-commerce clients?

A: E-commerce can easily integrate and have a successful return with a trigger-based email program. There are several places where a trigger-based campaign can be integrated with their customer behavior.

Welcome Programs. Incorporate trigger-based email messages into your welcome messages. Create a welcome message when one of the following actions is completed: download, purchase, sales inquiry, or registration.

Cross-Sell/Up-Sell Programs. You can create effective cross-sell and up-sell email campaigns using trigger-based actions based on your customers purchase profiles.
Abandonment Programs. When a customer abandons their shopping cart, trigger a message regarding their abandoned items and offer an incentive to complete the purchase.

Win-Back Programs. If you haven’t had a customer return to your site or make a purchase in six months or more, integrate a win-back email that entices the customer to return.

Q: Do you have any rules of thumb to offer after a client’s transition?

A:

1. Plan for your content and promotions. Remember, that despite the fact that these are transactional campaigns, the message that you communicate to your customers and prospects should align with your business objectives.

2. Use HTML. Enhance your messages with html. Incorporating your brand, as well as look and feel of your other marketing touches, can add to your transactional messages. Many companies spend very little time on their transactional messages, despite their significantly higher open rate.

3. Customize. Relevancy means customizing your messages to the individual recipient. To create an ongoing dialog with customers, consider dynamic content in your campaigns. Your customers are far more likely to respond to messages that include information that relates to their preferences, behaviors, or past purchases.

4. Measure. Just like any other email marketing campaign, don’t leave it on its own. Test and review and find ways to optimize your trigger-based email program to increase your ROI.

Thanks again to Sally and the Bronto team for sharing these tips with Get Elastic. If you’re interested in more information about trigger-based email campaigns, you can check out Sally’s white paper The Need for Ease.

3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed

Free webinar: July 17th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Avinash Kaushik, Author & Analytics Evangelist, Google
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Perhaps this is the one time of the year you can predict a large chunk of US consumers will be receiving some additional spending cash - tax rebate time. And many online retailers hope to cash in on customer’s stimulus checks, judging from the number of email campaigns and home pages jumping on this trend:

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9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Marketing Sherpa recently commented on the apparent email marketing trend of testing shorter and shorter subject lines. Rather than pack as many offers and calls to action as possible in the subject line, the short subject may stand out visually and attract the coveted clicks.

The blog post includes a testimonial from Content Director, Anne Holland that shorter subject lines for one of the Marketing Sherpa newsletters “invariably got better open rates.”

One online retailer that I’ve observed often “goes short” is Urban Outfitters. Here’s a screenshot of the last few months’ of subject lines. Of course, if they are split testing subject lines, it may not be a perfect record of their campaign. But one subject line in particular may just be the world’s shortest subject line: A+

Assuming Urban Outfitters is doing rigorous testing, the trend I see in my inbox indicates it’s either working or test results haven’t been dismal enough to abandon the strategy, depending on how long the testing period is.

I’m not convinced the copy is the most compelling…”Naming Names” and “Turn It Up” don’t give me enough information about the email content to motivate me to click on the offer. I chuckled at the “Aloha, Mr. Hand” throwback, but wonder how many of Urban’s current target demographic could place the movie it’s from. However, the unconventional titles are consistent with Urban’s image. So long as the customer expects attractive offers after the click, this strategy could work well for U.O.

To truly get an A+, Urban Outfitters could work on their pre-header text and take advantage of marketing within it, rather than showing Gmail and other email users “Having trouble with the email below…” messsage every time.

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Today is Earth Day, and for weeks online retailers have been jumping on the green wagon in their marketing efforts, taking advantage of their eco-friendly and sustainable products and projects.

More than ever, retailers are adopting a Wayne Gretzky “skate to where the puck is” marketing strategy. As consumers become more conscious of environmental issues, more and more marketing messages will contain green references and themes. Many feel that encouraging people to consume more in celebration of Earth Day is a bit ironic and counter-productive. But the shift towards eco-friendliness has encouraged many companies to source and sell green products in response to consumer demand. So getting the word out about the availability of green alternatives is especially fitting for this time of year.

The following is a sampling of Earth Day emails and on-site promotions from some of the top online retailers. You can read more about Earth Day email trends at RetailEmail.Blogspot.com, and more about holiday and event marketing from our Holiday Marketing Webinar.

EvoGear

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The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
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Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Bryan Eisenberg recently wrote a great post on email conversion that included some tips for avoiding spam filters from Yasifur Rahman.

I noticed that a Musician’s Friend email got trapped in my Spam box in Gmail, so I referred back to this post to see if I could diagnose how the email got flagged as spam. I found a few items that might have caused the delivery failure based on the article’s tips, plus a few other borderline-spammy red flags.

Diagnosing the Problem

Here is the Musician’s Friend email with images off (Firefox):

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The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
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Original post by Linda Bustos

One of my favorite blogs, RetailEmail.Blogspot.com, faithfully follows hundreds of email marketing campaigns to compile useful trend data and showcase the best (and worst) of email design and subject lines.

One of the most interesting tags to surf is the animation category. Here you’ll find a bunch of examples of how retailers are incorporating animated gifs into email messages. I’d like to share some of my favorites from this category:

1. Showing Items in Context

We learned from the recent webinar “Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website’s Personality?” that certain personality types or buying modalities respond better to seeing items “in context” or how they will be used practically. This means clothing on humans or furniture in a room. On a product page, multiple product views give customers an idea of how products look from different angles.

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Web Analytics for Online Retailers: Technology Use & Satisfaction 2008
Free webinar: April 17th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Eric T. Peterson, CEO, Web Analytics Demystified
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Original post by Linda Bustos

The common definition of email spam may be any piece of mail that isn’t opt-in or “solicited.” But the recent “Spam Complainers Survey” conducted by Q Interactive and Marketing Sherpa set out to see what email recipients consider spam, why they report spam and what they expect reporting spam accomplishes.

The findings should make any email marketer nervous:

• 56% feel email from known senders is spam if it’s “just not interesting to me”

• 50% believe “too frequent emails from companies I know” is spam
• 31% are irked by “emails that were once useful but are not relevant anymore”

Opt-in subscription is not enough.

Customer Perceptions on Reporting Spam

ISPs and hosted email services offer “report spam” tools to help customers reduce the unwanted inbox messages. Sometimes customers don’t recognize your sender name or forget they signed up to hear from you. But 48% reported they mark items as spam for reasons other than “did not sign up for email,” including:

• “The email was not of interest to me” - 41%

• “I receive too much email from the sender” - 25%
• “I receive too much email from all senders” - 20%

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Original post by Linda Bustos

We learned from our recent webinar Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website’s Personality Type that different people experience and interact with your website in different ways depending on their dominant personality type.

These 4 buying modalities have been described as Competitive (fast and logical decision-making), Spontaneous (fast and emotional decisions), Methodical (slow and rational) and Humanistic (slow and emotional). (Read this summary if you’re not familiar with the 4 modalities.)

You may have a tendency to make most of your decisions a certain way - that’s just who you are. But different buying situations can throw you into a different mode. For example, a typically spontaneous person must take a slow and rational approach when evaluating software vendors for a major ecommerce project, even though he may download iTunes tracks on impulse several times over the same period.

Personality Types and Email Marketing

If you had an email account that was purely ecommerce offers (no messages from work, friends or Nigerian ambassadors), you would see the majority are vying for your attention like: SALE! UP TO 50% OFF! NEW STOCK! ONLINE ONLY! EXCLUSIVE! FREE SHIPPING!

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Web Analytics for Online Retailers: Technology Use &amp Satisfaction 2008
Free webinar: April 17th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Eric T. Peterson, CEO, Web Analytics Demystified
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Kelly Mooney from Resource Interactive recently shared an email her friend received from apparel retailer Boden.

Soliciting customer reviews is a challenge because you want to tread carefully in asking for them. Including an incentive with your request is a good strategy, but some experts advise against offering discounts on future purchases. Jay Shaffer from Power Reviews recommends offering a chance to win something, rather than a $ or % discount which may serve as paid user reviews.

Boden uses this strategy in follow-up emails after a customer has made a purchase.

(click to enlarge image)

Here’s what I believe Boden does well:

• Good subject line. Review your Boden order and enter our prize draw. The subject line communicates exactly what is being asked for, with an incentive to encourage click through. Using the store name in the subject line indicates this is not a “thank-you-for-your-order-that-you-didn’t-make-please-enter-your-credit-card-information-again-to-avoid-deleting-your-account” spam scam.

• Opening the email copy with a “A big hearty thank you” sets a warm tone, and the choice of font sizes add character to the message.

• “Did you know that underneath my ginger head of hair lurks two unusually large ears, which are all the better for listening with?” This is a fantastic intro. The reader gets a humorous image of the writer of the email, while communicating that the sender of the email is personable and genuinely interested in customer feedback.

• “…starting with a chance to win $200 to spend at Boden…” That ain’t a bad prize at all. The link to the terms and conditions is also a good idea.

• “…it takes no time at all…” Reassuring the customer that this is not a labor-intensive task. We know that time is a huge deterrent for signing up for anything or contributing to anything.

• “…it will also help other lovely customers…” Appealing to the altruism of the customer is a good idea, and studies suggest customers love to help each other out.

• The personal signature is a nice touch. It’s coming from a real person, Boden founder Johnnie Boden.

• Images of purchased products and links to where to write a review is great usability and looks nice too.

Boden also solicits customer feedback from its website for a crack at a $500 spree.

Do we give you satisfaction?

We know the Rolling Stones couldn’t get any – but that’s probably because they weren’t shopping at Boden.

We’d really love to know what you think of our website. Please help us improve our service by taking this quick 10-minute survey.

And as a thank you we’ll enter you into a free prize draw to win $500 of Boden clothes.

Thanks very much for your time.

The page links through to a survey customers can do right on the website, using a tool from eCustomerOpinions. Again, Boden injects personality into its web copy, and adds the personal touch from the head of the company. Including the average length of time to complete the survey is another best-practice.

In fact, there’s a lot of light-hearted information about Johnnie Boden on the site. It’s nice to see a family business branded in such a friendly way. There is consistency between web copy and email communication. This warm and fuzzy email might appear less authentic if the website wasn’t the same way.

Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?
Free webinar: March 13th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Mike Svatek, Director, Marketing & Product Management, Baynote
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Original post by Linda Bustos

We touched upon leap year marketing last week, just one example of how you can work promotions around special days of the year. I found this great email example from Brookstone for Daylight Savings. Not only does Brookstone choose appropriate products to promote, the email acts as a public service announcement. Let’s take a closer look:

There’s a number of things Brookstone does very well:

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Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?
Free webinar: March 13th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Mike Svatek, Director, Marketing & Product Management, Baynote
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Original post by Linda Bustos

In January, Jason Billingsley and I presented a webinar on holiday and special event marketing for online retailers. We also have a number of blog posts related to the topic.

There truly is much opportunity to get creative with special event promotions. Today happens to be February 29, the only day that comes around only once in 4 years. It ain’t no Valentine’s Day, but many creative e-tailers are taking advantage of leap year with $29 deals, 29% off sales and other offers - some using jumping or frogs in imagery. (My favorite is the Container Store’s “Leap year happens every 4 years. Filing your taxes doesn’t. Get organized today!”)

A&E / History Channel

Aeropostale

Bluefly

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Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?
Free webinar: March 13th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Mike Svatek, Director, Marketing & Product Management, Baynote
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Gmail is a popular email service, and chances are your opt-in subscriber list has more than a handful of these accounts on it. Did you know that Gmail disables images in HTML emails by default, even if your customer has added you to his or her safe list? Email recipients have the option of turning images on in Gmail, but many won’t because they haven’t noticed you can, or are simply too lazy.

Likewise, many email designers and marketers could improve their emails so they render nicely even with images blocked, but they’re too lazy. Or they never noticed there was a problem.

Well now you have no excuse. This post will show you what typical emails look like in Gmail - the good, the bad and the ugly. Plus, 8 tips for optimizing emails when images are turned off.

1. Provide a link to a web-based version of your email near the top of your message.

This is the simplest way to salvage a skeleton email. Unfortunately, Delia’s has no link - the email recipient must find Gmail’s link in the green area to see the offer.

Make sure the link is easy to find. Comp-U-Plus does a nice job:

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Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?
Free webinar: March 13th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Mike Svatek, Director, Marketing & Product Management, Baynote
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

The following is an email I received from Circuit City the other day. I think this last-minute Valentine’s Day email campaign pulls together appropriate design elements, messaging and calls-to-action. And reflects what we’ve been talking about for months here at Get Elastic about holiday marketing.

Now that you’ve given your scroll-wheel a nice workout, let’s break this email down:

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Love Your Landing Page: Tips to Increase Ecommerce Conversion
Free webinar: February 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ayat Shukairy, Managing Partner, INVESP Consulting
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Original post by Linda Bustos

Retailers like Target, Walmart, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle’s “aerie” brand have found a way to direct-market to “Millennials” through Facebook Sponsored Groups. Like opt-in email campaigns, these retailers are using its Sponsored Group member lists to send notifications on contests, sales and even new Facebook applications.

Everyone who has joined a Sponsored Group has opted in by default to receiving Facebook “email” messages:

Here’s the latest Valentine email from aerie, a clothing line from American Eagle aimed at 15-25 year old females. It was sent to almost 50,000 members of its Sponsored Group:

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Love Your Landing Page: Tips to Increase Ecommerce Conversion
Free webinar: February 14th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Khalid Hajsaleh, President, INVESP Consulting
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Original post by Linda Bustos