Dark Side of the Moon

Marketing automation is all the rage...  Big data is the way...  Fill your pipeline with hundreds of qualified leads...


This too will change.

I have answered your call.  "Three Tips to Increase Your PPC ROI by 1500% in Three Minutes!"  Click here to download now....  

I know what is coming.  "First we are going to need your name.  And email address.  Company name.  Number of employees.  Title.    Marketing budget."

"Now please select the reason you are downloading this article."  

• Immediate Action!
• Acting in the Next 3 Months.
• 3 to 6 months.
• Planning for next year.

What is frequently missing is "I just wanted to read the article."

Now I am in your Marketing Automation System and the cogs start turning.

Don't get me wrong I am a big proponent of marketing automation (MA) when done right.  There is nothing wrong with automating monotonous, repetitive tasks.

But I am concerned about the sophistication (or lack of...) of some systems.  I am starting to think that MA systems are becoming a crutch, rather than a tool.  Are we (sales people) becoming lazy and a little too dependent on these systems?  

There is software to monitor everything we do today.  And somewhere along the line we have decided that simply being active is a good thing.  If you have enough in "your pipeline", sales will follow.

But what if the "leads" in your pipeline aren't really leads?  

I am inquisitive.  I enjoy reading about the latest trends in digital marketing, so when I see an article about the latest in PPC, I will take the time to "download the white paper".  (And as many of you know, if I do have an interest, I will hunt you down...)

But now I am in their MA system and I realize that I will receive their automated messages for the foreseeable future.  Today I received one of my favorites...

I saw you downloaded a whitepaper titled, "Performance Marketing 2.0", awhile ago. Awesome! I'm sure it's been valuable to you.

Actually it was not valuable to me.  I haven't even had time to read it. 

Followed by "Are you the person responsible for...."

Sorry.  I rarely "self prospect" by answering these automated emails (especially if I have no interest).  

If their marketing automation system offered the "No Thank You, Just Reading" option, my inbox would not be filling up with their messages that have zero chance of being read.  Hang on, my phone is ringing...  "Jeff - it's Justin from ABC Amazing Marketing and I noticed you downloaded our paper...."

Perhaps I would have received a single email.  "Jeff, I hope you enjoyed the article.  I see that you have no immediate needs, you are simply inquisitive.  If you ever have any questions about ABC Amazing Marketing, please don't hesitate to contact me.  In the meantime I will send you a Linked In invitation.  If you would like to stay in touch, please accept it..."

I have always believed that "people do business with people, not businesses".   

When you are online hunting for prospects and designing your questions for white papers - remember some of us are simply curious.  Allow us an out so you don't waste resources tracking a "prospect" that never existed.

I thank you.

"Shoot When The Ducks Are Flying" - Email Basics

In a February post we looked at basic rules for how to improve the performance of email campaigns.  This week eMarketer.com has posted  a great article - Avoid the Trash Can: When to Send Emails. 

As marketers move away from "spray and pray" tactics, click through rates are showing improvements.  On a side note, recently a colleague shared with me that 90% of the emails sent today are spam.  It is my intention to focus on tactics for improving the remaining 10% of emails.

And the first rule of email marketing remains - only send emails to individuals who have given you permission to do so.

Some of the highlights from eMarketer:

• The majority of marketers opt to send emails during the week, but marketers switching their send day to Saturday could see higher open rates and average order sizes.
• Thursdays saw the highest volume of US email sends in January 2014...
• But Q4 2013 data from Experian Marketing Services found Saturday had the highest open rates and average order sizes compared with all other days. 

The more telling data however is consumer behavior.  When do consumers react to emails?

• Analysis of emails sent during Q4 2013 by Experian Marketing Services showed emails sent during the nighttime hours of 8pm to 12am saw the highest unique open rates, click rates, transaction rates and revenue per email. However, buyers interacting with email sent during this window were less likely to spend...
• The average order size was $162, vs. $180-plus for emails sent between the hours of 8am and 8pm. 
• Emails sent during that 12-hour block saw lower unique open rates, unique click rates and transaction rates, suggesting marketers might have to consider a tradeoff between these measures and average order size.

"The very best marketing comes from observing consumer behavior and inserting your message into their behavior."  If I am running an eccomerce site, I am going to observe consumer behavior and be inclined to send emails when they are more receptive to buying.

86% of US Digital Marketers Use Email

I 'm back...

Great article below from our friends at eMarketer.com.  The opening paragraph is especially salient to me since I just relocated from Texas back to Toledo, Ohio.  And I am thrilled to join Thrive Internet Marketing as a Digital Marketing Specialist.

"Email’s not dead. In fact, Q2 2014 research by Gigaom found that 86% of US digital marketers used email marketing regularly—the highest response rate out of all programs listed."

It is relevant to me this week because the 25+ e-newsletters I subscribe to have to be updated so they find me at Jeff@ThriveIM.com.  

In the article it says that email marketing is the most effective tool for customer retention.  Better than social media.  Better than digital display ads and Pay Per Click.

I think a lot of this is true because you are in control of email.  If you don't want to read the emails coming from a company, simply tell them to stop.  Try that with ads on a web site.  

People keep asking me how to get more customers and the answer has been the same for +25 years.  Give customers something they want, not what you want to sell them.  

In the digital age we need to be reminded that we "can not be all things to all people".  You are better off with 500 passionate individuals in your email list than 10,000 individuals that could care less about your product.  

Segregate your database of people so you can control the process of giving them what they want.  It is hard work, but a database of 10,000 individuals is probably 10 groups of 1,000 people with similar interests.  Manage accordingly.

Go Mud Hens!

Email: The Old Kid on the Block's Still Got It

Around three-quarters of internet users check email via mobile

• Jul 28, 2014
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Email’s not dead. In fact, Q2 2014 research by Gigaom found that 86% of US digital marketers used email marketing regularly—the highest response rate out of all programs listed.

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On top of that, the June 2014 report detailing the survey results, underwritten by Extole, called email “the digital marketing workhorse,” meaning it was effective—and often considered the single most effective—for reaching all goals, including awareness (41% of respondents), acquisition (37%), conversion (42%) and retention (56%).

When it came to that last objective—customer retention—email dominated other programs, leading second-place social network marketing by nearly 20 percentage points.

Due to these positive results, one-quarter of respondents planned to increase spending on email marketing. This was the third-highest response, trailing social network marketing (38%) and content marketing (28%). Meanwhile, few marketers said they would up investments in newer digital formats such as mobile advertising (16%) and digital video ads (14%).

Based on April 2014 polling My.com, a chunk of those dollars would be well spent on mobile-optimized email. Nearly three-quarters of US internet users studied said they checked email on a mobile device. Android-powered devices were the most popular mobile platforms for checking email via mobile, cited by 48% of respondents, followed by iOS, with 38%.

However, a June 2014 study by Ascend2 found that mobile-optimized email still had much room for growth. Around one-third of marketing professionals worldwide said they used or were planning to use mobile-optimized email in the next year, compared with 54% who said the same for mobile-optimized websites. Email ranked fourth overall, with response rates close to those for mobile apps (35%) and mobile social media (33%).

Email - What Days Have the Highest Open Rate?

Great question! 

If you follow the link to the Marketing Charts article, at the bottom is the following:

Open and Click Rates by Day of the Week

There was less variance when sorting by day of the week (these results not limited to US accounts), although some patterns were apparent. During H1 (first half of the year), email open rates were lowest on Sunday (8.5%), Saturday (9.4%) and Thursday (9.4%), while during H2 (second half of the year), Saturday (6.1%) clearly had the lowest open rate, followed by Sunday (9%) and Thursday (9.6%). While there seemed to be a clear trend for lower open rates during the weekend, the sluggish rates on Thursdays was a fairly curious result.

During H1, open rates were highest on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (each at 10.7%), while during H2, they were highest on Tuesdays (10.7%) and Mondays (10.4%).

Click rates followed a different pattern. While Sundays sported generally below-average open rates, they had the highest click rate during both H1 (2.2%) and H2 (2.6%). Also of note: the next-highest click rates were reserved for Tuesdays (H1: 2.1%; H2: 2.5%), which had the highest open rates, suggesting that drawing conclusions regarding the relationship between open and click rates is a perilous endeavor.

During H1, the lowest click rate was on Monday (1.5%), while during H2, Saturday had the lowest average click rate (1.3%).

Average Open Rates for Email

Digital Marketers

Email marketing will remain a significant portion of our digital marketing plans for the foreseeable future.  The reason – it works and is readily accepted by many consumers. 

One of the questions I am frequently asked deals with “average open rates”.  (In fact one of you asked me this very question!)  Off to the research center.  Below are links to four articles that all bring some form of thought to this question.

MailChimp Email Marketing Benchmarks

MailChimp offers free research based on industry and company size.  Open Rates High - 48.6% for Religion.  Low Daily Deals/E-Coupons 19.3%

My favorite section of this article is Tips for Improving Your Stats.  Ideas on handling hard and soft bounces.  I like “When it comes to subject lines, boring works best. When you write your subject line, don’t sell what’s inside—tell what's inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines.”

Mailer Mailer

Open rates have dropped over the previous five years.  In 2008 they averaged a high of 13.2% and by 2012 it had settled to approximately 10%.  They also show open rates by industry and now is a time to remind you to look at research methodology.  The reported open rates for Mailer Mailer are considerably less than MailChimp reporting.  But they tend to trend the same.  MM also reports “The next chart demonstrates the cumulative percentage of opens in the hours after your message is delivered. So, a message delivered to 500 recipients may receive 50 opens, and this chart shows when those opens occur in the hours after deliver.”

It continues, “Our findings reveal that about half (51.7%) of all opens occur within the first six hours after delivery. At 18 hours after delivery, about three quarters (74.9%) of total opens have occurred. In general, most opens occur in the first few hours after delivery, after which point they taper off until all opens have occurred — approximately 2 weeks after the message has been sent.

Marketing Charts

This report, using data from Mailer Mailer shows the Email Open Rates, by Hour adjusted for local time.  “Generally speaking, much as with last year’s study, emails scheduled to be sent between the early evening and the early morning achieved the best open rates.”

“While emails scheduled between the evening hours and early morning tended to lead to the best email open rates, emails were actually opened at a much greater rate during the workday than during those overnight hours.”

Marketing Profs

 “Average email open rates continued their downward path during 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, though click-through rates (CTRs) increased slightly during the same period.”

Some key US findings for the five quarters ended 1Q12:

·       Open rates averaged 19.9%, down from a 2009 average of 21.3%.

·       CTRs averaged 5.4%, up from a 2009 average of 4.5%.
·       Unsubscribe rates (0.27%) were in line with previous studies overall, but varied dramatically by industry type.

My answer to what is an acceptable open rate?  It doesn’t matter.  The key to any good marketing is to test and measure.  Whatever today’s open rate is, tomorrow’s should be better.  This is a great time to brush up on ideas for A/B Testing.