Category: Email Marketing

An Unsubscribe Request from Someone Not On Your Email Marketing List

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It’s important to be diligent about unsubscribe requests, not only to respect the recipients wishes but also to keep your communications targeted to an engaged audience. In fact, it’s a legal obligation to include a method for unsubscribing in all of your email marketing.  However, it’s common for subscribers to overlook your unsubscribe instructions and simply send an email requesting removal from your list.  But what if the email address for the person asking to be unsubscribed isn’t in your list to begin with?

The root cause of this problem is almost always an issue of an email address or system forwarding communications to other email addresses.  For instance:

  • Email Forwarding – As people move to new companies or create new email addresses, they often set up automatic forwarding to a new email address. The old address is the one on your email list and is what’s actually redirected to the new email address that you have no record of.
  • Former Email Address – Some companies will redirect a former employee’s email to a colleague. Technically it’s the same thing as an email forward but can be more difficult to diagnose since it’s a different person that requested an email vs. the person requesting the unsubscribe.
  • Group Mailbox – Some organizations will subscribe a group or shared email address that distributes an email to multiple people. In this case, one person subscribed but other recipients might be unaware of it.  So the group mailbox is the record in your email marketing list.

Investigating the unsubscribe request in a logical manner will expedite the process while inconveniencing the requester as little as possible.

1. Use the Unsubscribe Method that the User didn’t

An email request from a user to unsubscribe is often a reply or forward to your marketing email.  In this case, the customized link or instructions for the user are still active.  Click the link and complete the unsubscribe process for the user.

2. Search for Similar Data

Do a search in your email list for the person’s name. If you have that on record it can be used to unsubscribe the old email address that is forwarding to the new one.  You can also try searching by company or similar URL in an email.  This can often hint at a former or group mailbox that might be redirecting to the person that made an unsubscribe request.

3. Respond to the Unsubscribe Request

If you struggle to make any connection between the email address that wanted to unsubscribe and your list, try replying to the person.  It’s better to let them know that the email is likely forwarding from an old or shared account and then the two of you might be able to identify how the email is being delivered.  Even if you can’t identify how the recipient is receiving the email, the recipient should be able to forward you the email that they received so that you can use the unsubscribe link.

With some logical steps, digital marketers can often uncover the delivery method to an email address not on the email marketing list and fulfill our obligation of honoring an unsubscribe request.

Email Marketing

Systematic Digital Marketing Platform Migration

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The need to move digital marketing platforms for social media, email, and/or your website is becoming more common as tools evolve and develop.  The change might be necessitated by external factors, like one platform acquiring another. Or it could be internal factors driving  change like finding more appropriate platform pricing or services.  Many trainers, consultants, or professional coaches procrastinate on making these changes for fear that it will be an arduous undertaking. If you focus on the principles of the digital marketing platform rather than the individual tool, it helps to simplify the requirements and make a migration much less daunting.

There are five basic components that can make up a digital marketing platform:

1. Audience

Contact lists can be time consuming for a system to export if they are large but it doesn’t need to be cumbersome for the digital marketer. If you export all your data to a spreadsheet file, it’s typically a simple process to set up matching categories on the new platform and import it so that you have a direct conversion.

2. Communications

Email/Communication templates can be challenging to migrate if you are relying on system generated layouts. However, most platforms offer a large variety of formats so matching up the new platform to something similar as the old platform is typically not hard.  If you happen to use custom layouts then the code can typically be copied over to a new platform and appear exactly the same.

3. Tracking / Analytics

It’s best to download or archive your tracking data from your digital marketing platform because it’s rare to have that migrate. If you archive your analytics as saved charts or in a spreadsheet then you can continue your standard analysis without pause until you have sufficient data on the new platform.

4. Call to Action

System generated calls to action like forms or tracked links often function on a template system. It’s best to analyze which of these calls to action are active so that you can create a duplicate on the new system and relink to that across your marketing channels. If calls to action are old and inactive then it’s a good time to let them expire.

5. Social Media

This is typically a simple setup to set and link up your social media accounts. As long as you have the login information for those accounts readily available, you can quickly integrate social media on the new platform

Of course making a migration will take some time and effort so it’s not something to undertake habitually.  However, if you need to migrate because your current digital marketing platform is no longer available or is no longer meeting your needs, it doesn’t need to be fretted over.  Rather than focusing on all the details that might be different, set a plan for the five elements above.  If you successfully get those five items migrated, you won’t lose any critical component and figuring out the nuances of the new platform becomes a minor task.

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Social Media

Email Marketing Pre-Send Checklist

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A re-send is often considered a cure for an email mistake but it has some nasty side effects, loss of credibility being the worst. Of course, mistakes are going to happen in your email marketing from time to time but it’s important not to default to a re-send as the remedy. Set some simple email release review steps that will help prevent the need for an email re-send.

The first step to prevent email marketing mistakes is to familiarize yourself with your email marketing platform.  While most platforms have similar functions they might have some unique features or idiosyncrasies that you will be alerted to by giving the tool a dry run. For instance, many tools have a reminder or follow up feature. Sometimes that tool is pre-set with default text in the email body.  Other times it is pre-set with instructions for the administrator on how to customize the email body.  Mistaking the tools function could result in a nonsensical email being sent to your users with instructions for setting up a communication in your email marketing tool.

Once you’ve had the chance to get acquainted with the tool it’s a good idea to make a release checklist.  I strongly suggest a physical checklist (on paper or digital) that you can check-off before your send. Since this is a repetitive task there is always a risk of absentmindedly going through the steps but not actively registering what you are reviewing. Physically checking off the list helps to keep you focused and actually reviewing the email.

Checklists will vary a little based on the email platform and type of send but common ones are:

  • The email is set to the correct list and segment
  • The ‘From’ name been checked and is from a recognizable name
  • Working ‘Reply To’ address has been set
  • It looks as expected across email clients
  • It looks as expected on mobile devices
  • Includes a working Unsubscribe link
  • Proofread and spellcheck the subject
  • Proofread and spellcheck the email body
  • Set up any personalization tags or fallbacks
  • Set up a plain text version of the email
  • All links lead to the correct place
  • Images have explanatory Alt text for when images are blocked

Your checklist might have a few more or a few less items than this depending on the platform and what type of template you use.  The importance of the email review process is to avoid an absent-minded review and carefully focus on what you plan to send so that you don’t have to re-send the same message again.

Email Marketing

Behaviorless Content Calendar

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What good is a plan if there is no action taken on it?  Imagine a coach setting up a game plan only to have the players wing it on game day or a cookbook where the chef wants to experiment with other ingredients.  A lack of execution on the plan makes the effort of creating a strategic design pointless. Digital marketing thrives on systematic execution and a content calendar is a great tool to pre-plan topics and set a schedule for its release. Creating a content calendar without the discipline to execute the behaviors to fulfill it, is a creative way of appearing productive while wasting time.

The amount of content that gets released through digital marketing can be overwhelming.  Topics across all the channels need to sync up to make a cohesive campaign.  So setting a content calendar with timelines is a great way to organize and visualize a strategic implementation.

Unfortunately many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches visualize it well but implement it poorly.  This typically happens because planned content doesn’t materialize as expected or other activities take priority over the content calendar.

If you are going to spend the time to make a content calendar, commit to extending the timetable to ensuring the behaviors are in place to execute on the calendar.

For example, don’t include items in your content calendar unless the content is already prepared.  Rather than assuring yourself that you’ll get an article or video ready by a deadline on your content calendar, have it finalized before it’s set on the calendar. Otherwise, distractions and delays will inevitably keep some of the content from being ready when the calendar calls for it. That means that content needs to be worked on weeks or months in advance of its release.

Also, set people or processes in place that automate time sensitive releases so that emergencies don’t derail the digital marketing timeline. A strategic plan remains the plan even if the behaviors to accomplish it are suddenly an inconvenience. This systematic implementation ensures you’ll execute on the strategy despite disruptions.

A content calendar without the behavior to execute on the plan is fruitless intent.  Don’t waste time deluding yourself about what you intended.  Set a solid behavior plan that supports the content calendar so that the true schedule follows your strategic plan.

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Social Media

Reviews to Avoid Breaks at the End of Your Digital Marketing Chain

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Efficient digital marketers have a toolbox of systems and applications to publish their digital marketing campaigns. This toolbox might be a set of applications working together or an all–inclusive platform. No matter what type of setup you employ, change is constant in digital marketing and the technology that drives it.  That change usually improves capabilities and stability, but it also puts stress on your digital marketing processes.  No matter how simplified or refined your digital marketing process is, external updates will cause it to break and a regular review process is necessary to correct those interruptions when they occur.

To quickly identify breaks in your process it’s important to map out your digital marketing procedures.  Think of it as a chain.  The top of the chain is your primary marketing platform or set of platforms. The bottom of the chain is the deployment of individual communications on a particular channel. Problems at the top of the chain will cause the whole process to critically fail. Problems at the bottom of the chain will be isolated.

Critical failures are what digital marketers dread the most but there is a silver lining to a high level problem . . . it’s not going to be overlooked.  Critical failures obviously take priority because marketing activities typically grind to a halt when top of the chain systems fail.

The lower level breaks in the marketing process pose a unique problem, they are often overlooked.  While these less severe breaks won’t have immediate catastrophic effects as a high level problem, they can become a nagging detriment to your digital marketing’s overall effectiveness.

Here’s a simple break in the chain that we recently discovered on a process review:

 

Article Posted to Website

The blog post is set within a social media content manager

The SM content manager publishes to a set of LinkedIn accounts

The content is shared from LinkedIn to Twitter by two individuals

The content arrives into the Twitter feeds

 

On a content review it was discovered that images had stopped appearing on the Twitter posts.  Working backward we discovered that the image was available on every channel except Twitter. A recent Twitter update restricted the image from the blog section of the site from displaying when it was shared from LinkedIn.

So based on the break, the process had to be redefined.  Either the site template needed updated to meet Twitter’s requirements for sharing from LinkedIn, or the content needed published to Twitter in a way other than a LinkedIn share. We decided to go with the latter and publish to Twitter from the social media content manager. This resulted in a simpler solution that eliminated a step in the process.

This is a fairly simple example but even with a complex digital marketing process the prompt is based on an end point review.  Schedule recurring reviews of the endpoint of all your channels.  It doesn’t need to be a daunting effort but rather a quick health check.  Make a list of your channel end points like emails, social media pages, or landing pages and set a schedule to make sure they are still functioning as you’ve designed them.

I suggest a review at least once a quarter (our schedule is monthly). If you find something is out of place at the end of your marketing process, this review will let you backtrack and eliminate the break before it becomes a drag on your digital marketing effectiveness.

 

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Social Media

Is Your Digital Marketing Content ‘Spin’ Plagiarism?

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Content is critical to a successful digital marketing campaign.  It’s also challenging and time consuming to generate the type of quality content that will attract your target market and inspire them to engage with you.  Unfortunately, many marketers look for shortcuts for generating content which leads to disjointed messaging that struggles to establish credibility with target markets.

There are only two authentic ways of generating content:

  • Creating original and accurate content that engages your target market.
  • Compiling credible information for your audience and making meaningful commentary on that content (while crediting the content’s creator).

There is varied media for delivering content from video, to blogging, to published articles, to graphic representations; but every type of media boils down to one of these two content strategies for generating content.

Unfortunately, there are two common inauthentic ways to generate content, plagiarism and regurgitation.

Regurgitation is often repeating oneself or others without expanding on or digging deeper into the topic.  Rethinking how you create your content will often shift repetition into clearly communicating your valuable knowledge into compelling content marketing.

Plagiarism is a tougher habit to break. Marketers often view their own plagiarism in a lens of self-delusion, referring to it as their ‘spin’ rather than a copy.  In fact, I rarely find an instance where plagiarism is executed with malicious intent, but rather it’s rooted in fear that the marketer is incapable of making compelling content.

To cleanse plagiarism, the first step is identifying if you are guilty of it.  Most plagiarism in digital marketing is either assembled or restructured.

Assembled plagiarism is seeking out content and then assembling it into something new.  For example, a blogger might select a topic they want to cover and then do a web search for that topic.  They then copy sections of others’ articles and assemble those into their own post.  They then ‘complete’ their content by making bridges between the disjointed copy to make it somewhat more cohesive. If you find that the majority of a piece of content you create is taken from another source and you’re attempting to glue it together, it’s likely that you’re guilty of plagiarism.

Restructured plagiarism is taking something that already exists and modifying copyrighted material or specific elements to make it ‘their own’.  There are even tools that originated in academia making their way into digital marketing like Spinbot, Essay Rewriter, Free Article Spinner, and Auto Rewriter.  These tools restructure sentences and liberally apply the thesaurus to written content. If you are lifting and shifting content, especially if you are doing it in an automated way, you have fallen into a process of plagiarism.

Do any of these content creation processes sound similar to how you develop content?  Hopefully not, but if so, awareness is the first step to eliminating the problem.  But is it really a problem?  After all there are many in depth articles about exactly how much of an article, image, layout, intellectual property, etc. needs changed to avoid copyright infringement.  If your content doesn’t risk a law suit, should it concern you?

Ethics aside, plagiarism will erode credibility in digital marketing.  Most notably because it:

  • Makes for disjointed communications that struggle to find a stable voice to your target market.
  • Results in poorly constructed messages that lack the appropriate level of professionalism (try running your article through one of the rewrite tools above to see an example of how mangled the text can get and how the initial meaning can be completely misconstrued).
  • Often takes the same amount of time as creating your own content. Piecing together disparate information or restructuring something in a different but understandable way is often not a fast process.
  • Ensures you won’t provide original insight because by definition you are simply repackaging what others have already communicated. This ensured you won’t be a market leader but rather flying under the radar hoping your target audience doesn’t discover the authentic voice and insights that you are pulling from.

Plagiarism is often falsely conveyed as inspiration. There’s a difference between inspiration and theft.  Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches should be actively learning about their field of specialty.  Sometimes the information that we encounter can be incorporated into our digital marketing but needs to be done in an authentic way by making new insights into the topic and crediting the original content creator when referencing their insights. When done appropriately, it builds credibility as a market leader, rather than assembling or restructuring what others have created.

 

Image courtesy of Kippelboy | commons.wikimedia.org

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing

Personalized Triggers in Email Marketing

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Our last post covered how simple personalization can register as SPAM to recipients. Should personalization be abandoned all together even though it is often cited as a major boost to email marketing success?  Obviously not, but the focus of the personalization needs to be selective and identifiable.  Setting up email marketing campaigns by triggered activities rather than general information or demographic data registers as a one-to-one communication which is more impactful to the recipient because it’s clear why they are receiving the email.

Triggered emails are often used in ecommerce.  For instance, if you buy something at an online store, you’ll get sale offers for similar items a few days or weeks later.  Another example is if you fill a cart and then abandon it.  That often triggers an email asking if you need assistance or highlighting coupons for something that was in the cart.

Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches can lift these same concepts for calls-to-action (and that’s often a valuable tool for improving lead conversion) but recipients are savvy enough that most will not register it as a personal one-to-one communication.

For B-to-B email marketing campaigns it’s best to take the concept but modify for individual actions.

Here’s an example. Suppose a group of consultants regularly attend events with trade associations.  At those events they offer a specific report that is pertinent to that particular trade and collect contact information for those that want to receive it. Those two pieces of information can be used to trigger an email.

The email campaign can be sent to the contacts with a short message like,

<First Name>,

I met you at the ________ event.  The _____________ report we discussed is available here.  After you read it, would it make sense to set time aside to discuss any of the common challenges that you might be struggling with?

Regards,

<Consultant Name>

This is not a terribly complex set of data to work with.  There’s four variables to set into a campaign: the person’s name, the event they attended, the report that they would have been introduced to with a link, and the consultant that attended the event.

The complexity is not in the data but rather in the execution.  There are a few prerequisites necessary to make this campaign successful and worthwhile.

  • Good Data Management – Both frontline employees and marketing professionals need to work in unison to make sure the necessary data is collected and organized. Sending emails with the wrong personalized data will make it obvious that the emails are a bulk effort and, worse yet, make it appear as if you don’t care about the recipients.
  • Large Group – If you don’t have a large enough sample size then it’s simpler to send each email directly to each person. Make sure there’s enough scale to make the campaign’s setup worth the effort.
  • Recurrence – Recurring events or offers are ideal because the same process can be used over and over to engage a target group. A high level of recurrence can actually overcome limits on scale if the frequency will make the number of recipients large enough.

Lacking any of these pre-requisites often calls the amount of effort into question.  However, if these pre-requisites are met, triggered emails often convert exponentially higher than general personalization because they genuinely provide a one-to-one personalized offer.

 

Email Marketing

Avoid Personalized Email Marketing From Being Mistaken as SPAM

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Personalization in email communications is always a valuable goal.  In fact, the level of personalization continues to get more and more sophisticated.  Marketers can segment by trigger events, demographic information, or gathered personal data.  Unfortunately spammers and scammers are leveraging the same tools to deceive recipients. The escalation in marketing tool sophistication is creating skepticism with recipients who are becoming savvier at identifying automated messages and screening them out.

Many email marketers are using a simple email format that appears to be a one-to-one communication with the recipient rather than a bulk communication.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with the approach but some of the tools that made these emails so effective in the past have been adopted in unscrupulous emails and can cause suspicion.

I personally learned this lesson when I received an email requesting a feature review from a marketing tool provider I used in the past.  The email appeared to be sent to me personally but when I scanned the text and saw a generic salutation with my name, my company in the body, a reference to an association I belong to, and a lengthy explanation of the new feature, I assumed it was a bulk email and deleted it.

It’s only when I got a call from a person in their support team that I had worked with that I realized they actually only sent the request to a small number of previous clients for feedback. So if I mistakenly assumed an actual one-to-one email was SPAM, what chance does a personalized bulk email have?

There are some lessons to pull from my red flags in this email.

  • Salutation – make it appropriate to the email. If it’s meant to be informal have it written that way like Hi <First Name>.  Avoid general salutations like Dear <person>, it reads as a merged bulk email.
  • Company – Unless there is really a reason to reference a particular piece of personal data, don’t use it. Any information dropped into a non-specific sentence will appear like a merged field.
  • Association – I assumed the sender had gotten access to the association’s member list and emailed all of us. Same lesson, if the data isn’t pertinent, don’t include it.
  • Lengthy – Make sure your email gets to the point. It should be as short as possible, clear on the request, and simple for the recipient to take the next step.

Not coincidentally these same lessons can be applied to effective one-to-one professional emails you send but those emails typically include enough specific information to not be perceived as a bulk communication. Placing a few personalized fields in a bulk email will not make it personal to the individual.

Our next post will cover including personalized triggers to make the email more engaging by specifically identifying why an individual is receiving the message.

Email Marketing

Split Testing Through Campaign Evolution

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In our last post we covered why A/B testing can be difficult for some companies to effectively implement. But that doesn’t mean the principles of testing should be abandoned completely.  An evolutionary process of consistent improvement is a more gradual way of implementing split tests.

Many trainers, consultants, and professional coaches set up a template for a marketing campaign, run it for a period of time until they get sick of it, and then do a redesign which starts the process over again.  While this keeps them up to date on new trends in marketing and technology, it’s not introducing improvements as the campaign runs like A/B testing will.

A/B testing at its best is a duplicate communication with one specific difference.  That difference can then be tested for effectiveness and the better performing treatment is then adopted. Digital marketing campaigns should have some level of repetitiveness especially in layout and design.  These repeating elements can be leveraged as a control and updated one at a time and compared for effectiveness over time in the same way that A/B tests are.

Making gradual split tests while running a digital marketing campaign avoids the common limiting factors of A/B testing but still allows for ongoing testing for gradual improvement.  However, there are a few restrictions to keep in mind.

Time

Time is the primary limiting factor in doing gradual split tests. Because the sends are more spread out, changes cannot be implemented as quickly.  Make sure you allow enough time on a single change to gather sufficient information.  For example, if you have a monthly newsletter you’ll need to run the change twice to validate a changes effectiveness which means each change will take three months to validate.

One Change at a Time

This is really another limiting factor of time but subtly different.  Split testing relies on testing a single element to know that particular change is responsible for an improvement or decline. Having more than one thing changed to speed up the process only serves to invalidate your test.

Same Audience

Since there is a gap of time between treatments you need to keep consistency with the audience. Too many changes into who receives the communication will serve to invalidate the test.

Content

While many elements are repetitive in digital marketing, content often is not.  If you have small elements of recurring content, like an email subject line with repeating title or commonly used social media tags, then by all means test it.  But most of the content variables will not repeat consistently enough to be tested in a gradual ongoing method.

 

If you plan for these restrictions and formulate gradual split test changes around them, you can gather many of the same insights that A/B tests will provide without dedicating nearly as much time or as many resources.

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Social Media

Why Companies Struggle to Implement A/B Testing in Their Digital Marketing

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A/B (split) testing is the most popular and often most effective way of testing multiple versions of an app, email, or webpage to see which version produces better results. However only 27% – 38% of companies actively do split testing. Of the companies that actively do split testing, almost half claim they do it infrequently or inaccurately. So if A/B tests offer the best opportunity to objectively improve digital marketing conversions, why do so many companies skip it entirely?  Split testing often presents technical or resource challenges that smaller companies struggle to overcome.

There are three common limiting factors that prevent trainers, consultants, and professional coaches from successfully implementing and executing A/B tests:

Time

Marketing is often done at a frenzied pace for many smaller firms.  If a marketing campaign is being done rapidly, or worse yet as a fire drill, it’s difficult to consistently produce communications and meet deadlines.  Making time to take on an additional burden of creating a separate version of a communication and reviewing the analytics to glean valuable insight is simply unrealistic.

A/B Testing Tools

There are valuable tools available to facilitate A/B testing.  Some are built in to digital marketing platforms where others can be added on to your existing platform.  However, inclusive platforms or add on components can be technically challenging to implement and incur additional cost.  Increasing the marketing budget or meeting the requirements to leverage the testing tool is often an unsurmountable barrier for smaller firms.

Sample Size

Accurate A/B testing relies on a sufficient sample size.  If a smaller firm’s website traffic or email recipients don’t generate enough raw data then the A/B test will be flawed and runs the risk of providing inaccurate results.

If you are in the majority of companies that don’t do split testing, is it because of a legitimate limitation to execute them?  If so, it doesn’t mean that you can’t objectively assess your digital marketing but it likely does mean that you will need to go about it in a more gradual way. In our next post, we will cover a less robust form of split testing that relies on an evolving digital marketing campaign.

Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, Site Conversion
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