Email Marketing Lounge

We at Yesmail Interactive are incredibly honored to be included in the most recent Forrester Wave™ for email marketing vendors.  We have much to be excited about as we received perfect scores for: Dynamic content setup, testing, delivery executionMultiple, flexible... More

We at Yesmail Interactive are incredibly honored to be included in the most recent Forrester Wave™ for email marketing vendors.  We have much to be excited about as we received perfect scores for:

• Dynamic content setup, testing, delivery execution
• Multiple, flexible reporting and analysis options, and
• Security

Yesmail Interactive also received top scores for:

• An Apps library that provides advanced reporting, like competitive intelligence reporting, industry benchmarks and customer interactions across different channels
• Creative services offering further supported by customer references utilized in the Wave  
• Customer retention with a global churn rate consistently above 99%

Additionally, Yesmail Interactive's proprietary research tool, "Yesmail Market Intelligence", contributed to the perfect score in the multichannel correlation evaluation.  Yesmail Market Intelligence, among other things, monitors the correlation between digital channels, like email, and social activity, i.e. how email activity drives social buzz, and how social activity drives email response.  Yesmail Market Intelligence combines social, mobile, and email monitoring to power competitive, market, and digital content intelligence from a centralized, easy to use console.

Yesmail Interactive's email and social media integration functionality also received above average scores.  With several ways to integrate social media with email, users can seamlessly schedule and deploy social campaigns, show growth and response trends in social channels via the Social Insight Dashboard, track click-throughs of social 'share' buttons, and create social opt-in forms.  

Yesmail Interactive has made noteworthy leadership changes including the appointment of Chairman Mike Iaccarino as CEO.  His outstanding industry track record will help bolster our growing business, as will Purandar Das who brings his extraordinary expertise in email marketing technology and analytics as CTO.  We have further strengthened our expansion in the market with the hiring of Linda Vetter as Director of Marketing and Marc Shull as Sr. Director of Strategic Analytics.  These highly experienced professionals bring demonstrable successes and domain expertise in email marketing with them.

Along with significant new technology features, functionality and benefits we are releasing this year we are aggressively investing in strategy and analysis skills so that as customers evolve we're evolving with them. More exciting news to come.  Watch this space.
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Using our soon to be released Market Intelligence tool, our Strategic Services team discovered that over the holiday period, online retailers were sending approximately four tweets to every one email, often staggering an 'offer tweet' in between 3-4 'engagement tweets'. ... More

Using our soon to be released Market Intelligence tool, our Strategic Services team discovered that over the holiday period, online retailers were sending approximately four tweets to every one email, often staggering an 'offer tweet' in between 3-4 'engagement tweets'.  Twitter is a great channel for interacting with current and prospective followers and it can also be utilized to spread the word on special promotions and grow your email list.  There are three simple steps to follow to make this happen:

1. Setup a (or use an existing) sign up form
2. Tweet your message
3. Track growth and interest

Step 1 - Setup a Sign Up Form
While you may already have an email sign up form in place to use, you will want to review it for a few key aspects:

• Make it easy to sign up.  Preferences can be further collected at a later time, if you add too many fields to the process; your customer may decide it's too cumbersome to complete.
• Have an automated message setup upon submission of the form to welcome your new subscriber or to provide them with any information you wish to promote in your Tweet.
• Use a trackable URL to the sign up form so you can assess response.  A service like bit.ly can provide you with both a shortened URL and analytics on the number of clicks.
• Make sure the form is optimized for a mobile device.  Many of your followers may be accessing Twitter via their phone so check that the sign up process is as easy to use as if they were on a desktop.
  
  

Step 2 - Tweet your Message
There are multiple ways you can motivate your followers to opt-in to your email list.

• Highlight Benefits: Highlight some of the advantages to signing up for emails, as Dreamfields Pasta does in their tweet below.  Dreamfields also utilizes hashtags to potentially extend their reach outside of their direct follower audience.
  
  
  
• Special Offers/Coupons: Indicate that signing up for email is the only way to get access to special offers, as BierCraft Restaurant highlights in their post below.  In the second example, Kid to Kid Buford not only calls out that opting in is how you get a special coupon, but also ties in a specific timeframe for the customer to take action.
  
  
  
• Contest/Sweeps: Run a contest or sweepstakes where the rules and information are available for customers that sign up to receive emails, as in the Jacksonville Landing tweeted in the example below.
  
  
  
• First to Know: Another way to highlight that email recipients get access to exclusive information is to call out that signing up for email is the best way to be the 'first to know' about news, product updates, sales, and other types of promotions.
  

Step 3 - Track growth and interest
After you have sent out your Tweet (you may wish to repeat the Tweet using slightly different wording over a few days, but with the same sign up link), track how many link clicks you have received (using a service like the aforementioned bit.ly) and how many subscribers have signed up. You can also track these sign ups as a special segment to experiment with specific offers and content to see how email subscribers that also follow you respond to different messages.  

Adding your email sign up to your Twitter communications is a quick and easy way to further engage your audience.  Just remember to keep your Twitter 'voice' the same when you tweet your information and highlight the value of signing up for emails to see your list start to grow. 

What ways in social media are you utilizing to build your email list?

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Yesmail Market Intelligence recently conducted an IP forensic examination on a top retailer and has identified that their ESP may be using their IP addresses to improve performance of campaigns sent from other marketers. More

The lifeblood of an email program is an IP address.  It's the necessary mechanic buried deep within the email machine that makes delivery possible.  As IP technology continues its evolution and maturation, ISPs are now able to store sending reputation on IP addresses and also the Senders that are using them.  An IP address with a positive reputation is priceless, as it significantly improves an email campaign's chances of reaching the inbox.  Yesmail Market Intelligence recently conducted an IP forensic examination on a top retailer and has identified that their ESP may be using their IP addresses to improve performance of campaigns sent from other marketers.

 

We have uncovered that during the past 12 months, this retailer's email campaigns are being sent from over 19 different IP addresses (see Figure 1).  This seems highly irregular, as programs similar in size to this retailer only require 4-8 IP addresses on average.  Additionally, Yesmail Market Intelligence has detected over 25 other major companies mailing off these same IP addresses (see Figure 2) during the same time that this retailer had used, or was using them to deploy email campaigns. 

 

Retailers, like these, may have no idea their ESP is leveraging their reputable IP addresses and reputation to increase performance of less established marketers and reach recipient inboxes without having first built their own reputation.  Sharepool technology is highly frowned upon by the ISP community and leads to several other deliverability issues long-term. Marketers should always request dedicated IP addresses from their ESP, as it only takes a single marketer with a faulty campaign to cause an entire sharepool to become blocked, or worse, tarnish the reputation of the established marketers using these IPs.   

 

The million dollar question remains: Do these retailers know they are sharing IPs? 

 

Curious to learn if your IPs are being used by other marketers? Email sales@yesmail.com or contact us directly at 1-877-YESMAIL.

 

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In 1991 when talking about professional basketball, everyone wanted to 'Be Like Mike'! Now in 2011, if you want to compete in the daily deals arena, you need to 'Be Like Groupon'.Yesmail Market Intelligence is putting a spotlight on how... More

In 1991 when talking about professional basketball, everyone wanted to 'Be Like Mike'! Now in 2011, if you want to compete in the daily deals arena, you need to 'Be Like Groupon'.

Yesmail Market Intelligence is putting a spotlight on how Groupon is using Email, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube for digital marketing!

Deployment Calendar - December 2011:
Groupon utilized all 4 digital channels throughout December and deployed up to 15 campaigns in a single day!
Interestingly, Groupon has deployed identical campaign volumes across Twitter and Facebook for the month of December.


Email Campaign Analysis

Average Subject Line Length:  42 Characters (Over 400 campaigns analyzed to calculate this average).

Sample Subject Lines:
1.    Half Off Beginners' Knitting or Crochet Class
2.    Up to 67% Off Swedish Massage in Glendale
3.    Up to 61% Off Tanning Services
4.    $96 Off Skydiving Session from Sportations

Comments:  Groupon rarely utilizes their name in subject lines.

Facebook Post  Analysis

Current Brand Likes: 351,732
Change in Past 24 Hours:  +130

Average Likes per Campaign: 53
Average Comments per Campaign: 21

Recent Facebook Campaigns:
Twitter Analysis

Current Followers: 51,739
Change in past 24 Hours: +5

Average Campaign Length: 74 characters

Recent Twitter Campaigns:
YouTube Analysis

Current Channel Views: 1,819,392
Change in past 24 Hours: : +715

Average Campaign Length: 154 seconds
Average Comments Per Campaign: 15
Average Views Per Campaign: 20,658
Average Likes Per Campaign: 74.5
Average Dislikes Per Campaign: 4.0
Average Ratings Per Campaign: 78.5
Average Favorites Per Campaign: 80.2

Recent YouTube Campaigns:
Social Channel Comments:  Groupon is not actively pushing deals through their social channels.   Rather, Groupon is using these channels to build market presence and establish a more intimate relationship with their audience through engaging questions, comments, and videos.

Closing Comments:  If you want to be the best, you need to beat your competition at their own game!   Marketers must learn to fully embrace all 4 digital channels in order to remain competitive.  Yesmail Market Intelligence is detecting significant volume increases across all 4 channels from all marketers.  How are you keeping up?  Want to learn what your competition is doing? Email sales@yesmail.com or contact us directly at 1-877-YESMAIL.

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Yesmail Interactive's field research indicates that marketers are struggling with the following question: 'Which Facebook Campaign-Type (aka Post) will generate maximum user engagement for my business?' More

Yesmail Interactive's field research indicates that marketers are struggling with the following question:  'Which Facebook Campaign-Type (aka Post) will generate maximum user engagement for my business?'   To bring everyone up to speed, we've defined the 6 popular Facebook campaign-types below:

1.     Link - A campaign (post) that contains an URL.

2.     Music - A campaign (post) that contains a streamable song.

3.     Photo - A campaign (post) that contains a photo / image.

4.     Status Update - A campaign (post) that contains basic text with no interactive media.

5.     Flash Object / SWF - Contain an interactive survey or application.

6.     Video - Contains a full motion video.

 

We decided to put our new Market Intelligence (MI) solution to the test and obtain deeper insight into this question.   Our Market Intelligence solution uncovered the following facts after analyzing 19,223 Facebook campaigns posted from the Top 100 marketers:

1.     'Link' campaigns are the most popular deployment type amongst Marketers.

2.     'Photo' campaigns generate the most 'Likes'.

3.     'Status Update' campaigns generate the most 'Comments'.

The same Market Intelligence solution also uncovered the top Facebook campaign based on Comment count from the marketers in our tracking network.  Walgreens currently holds the top campaign spot with over 33,790 comments after being posted on December 13, 2011.

Closing Comment:  Comments are 'King' with Facebook.  Deploying more Status Update campaigns will generate more comments and potentially more leads for your business!

 

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Macy's Facebook Campaign " 'Like' this if you believe in Santa!" is currently leading ALL Facebook campaigns from the top 100 marketers with 68,834 'Likes' and is in the 12th place overall from the top 1000 Marketers worldwide! More

Yesmail Interactive - Marketing Intelligence Quick Fact:

Macy's Facebook Campaign " 'Like' this if you believe in Santa!" is currently leading ALL Facebook campaigns from the top 100 marketers with 68,834 'Likes' and is in the 12th place overall from the top 1000 Marketers worldwide!

Below is a snapshot of the top 3 Facebook campaigns from the 100 top retailers we are tracking. 

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Have you ever wondered how other Marketers are utilizing ALL digital channels (Email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube)? Or how many campaigns other Marketers are sending out across each channel per day this holiday season? The Yesmail Interactive laboratory has been hard at work these past 12 months developing a new revolutionary solution to help answer these questions! More

Have you ever wondered how other Marketers are utilizing ALL digital channels (Email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube)? Or how many campaigns other Marketers are sending out across each channel per day this holiday season?  The Yesmail Interactive laboratory has been hard at work these past 12 months developing a new revolutionary solution to help answer these questions!

We have randomly chosen 100 of the top 500 online internet retailers from (internetretailer.com/top500) and plugged them into our new Competitive Intelligence solution.   This solution (which will be formally launched in Q1 2012) is the FIRST solution on the PLANET that captures ALL digital marketing campaigns from ALL marketers on Email, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and SMS.  Much like on Facebook how you would add a Friend to your Social Network, in our solution you add a Marketer to your Marketing Network! 

Throughout this holiday season Yesmail Strategic Services will be providing marketing analysis & insights with data from the Top 100 Marketers utilized in this study.  Basically we are following the best in class retailers and sharing their holiday marketing efforts over four key spending periods.

Snapshot 1: Nov 1 to 17: Holiday Kick-off  

Snapshot 2: Nov 18 to Dec 2: Black Friday / Cyber Monday Performance

Snapshot 3: Dec 3 to Dec 20: Green Monday / Free Shipping

Snapshot 4: Dec 21 to Jan 16: Holiday Wrap-up

 

We are excited to invite you to our late January webinar where Kristin Kleweno (Sr. Strategist from Yesmail Strategic Services) and myself (Jason Warnock) will be presenting key trends, patterns, and findings this holiday season after analyzing it under the microscope. Stay tuned for specifics on date and time.

 

In the mean time, here is a quick glimpse of our findings from the 2 Holiday snapshots. As you know, so far it's been an exciting time out there with ecommerce records being broken - Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending this year, rising 22% from 2010 and representing the heaviest online spending day in history, and just the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold (comScore). We see marketing deployments at all time high as well.  

 

1.     Average number of deployments per Marketer, per channel, per day.  These averages showcase how Marketers are utilizing each digital channel this holiday season.  How does your program size-up?

Snapshot 1 Holiday Kick-off (Nov 1 - 17):

a.     Email campaigns per day: 0.43 (average 3 per week)

b.    Twitter campaigns per day:  3.1

c.     Facebook campaigns per day: 1.4

d.    YouTube campaigns per day:  0.6

Snapshot 2 Black Friday / Cyber Monday (Nov 18 - Dec 2):

a.     Email campaigns per day: 0.6 (ave of 4 per week)

b.    Twitter campaigns per day: 4.1 

c.     Facebook campaigns per day: 1.5

d.    YouTube campaigns per day:  0.5

 

2.     What was the busiest day for marketing campaign deployments during these snapshots across all marketers?

Snapshot 1 (Nov 1 - 17):

·         Thursday November 17 with 719 total marketing campaigns from all 100 tracked Marketers.  

Snapshot 2 (Nov 18 - Dec 2):

·         Cyber Monday November 28 with 892 total marketing campaigns from all 100 tracked Marketers.  

Can you confirm if these were your busiest digital campaign days during these 2 periods?

3.     Which Major Marketer is NOT using Facebook this holiday season?

 

Apple.  It's truly fascinating that Apple has not endorsed Facebook for Marketing.    Apple is rapidly accelerating on YouTube holding the top Campaign spot with their sensational commercial 'Apple - Introducing Siri on iPhone 4S' which gained 6,233,564 views since being posted Oct 4, 2011.  Macy's 'Guys Scream for Justin Bieber in Macy's Black Friday Commercial' is currently the top YouTube campaign in our holiday research study with over 2,761,899 views since being posted November 16.

 

Stay tuned for our next snapshot and our January webinar! It will be a complete Holiday analysis which includes trends, key themes, promos and examples of multi-channel campaigns.

Interested in learning more about Yesmail Market Intelligence and want to be a part of our exciting beta? Email sales@yesmail.com or contact us directly at 1-877-YESMAIL. 

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eMarketer published an interesting study recently of adult internet users who subscribed to approximately three daily or weekly shopping emails or newsletters showed that more than 60% read the content every day and 22% were checking their email multiple times... More

eMarketer published an interesting study recently of adult internet users who subscribed to approximately three daily or weekly shopping emails or newsletters showed that more than 60% read the content every day and 22% were checking their email multiple times per day.  That read frequency, alongside with the fact nearly half were still excited enough about receiving daily deals and said they "can't wait" to see the latest deals in the messages - means that Enterprises marketing to consumers have a huge opportunity to drive sales on a daily basis with this type of email program.

eBay, an industry leader in email marketing and one of our clients, has had their eBay Daily Deals program in place since 2009. This program consistently drives revenue and provides value for eBay members. Check out the Tech Tuesday Daily Deal email from eBay posted here.

Any eBay member can "opt-in" to receive the Daily Deals and the program continues to see organic increases in their opt-in base.  And while we can't give you the exact numbers, we are all proud to say that eBay metrics consistently exceed industry benchmarks due to their specialized and highly targeted program.
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I spoke at the Email Evolution Conference last week in Miami, it was a great educational event for anyone who manages and touches all the ways businesses use email to communicate with their intended audience. More

I spoke at the Email Evolution Conference last week in Miami, it was a great educational event for anyone who manages and touches all the ways businesses use email to communicate with their intended audience. As a standalone channel or as a part of a multi-channel marketing program.
 
I spoke on how social and mobile marketing are changing how email should be designed and I got some great questions which I'm looking at publishing in the lounge over the next few weeks. But until then, Chief Marketer wrote this nice summary of the session.
 
Five Keys to Mobile-Ready Email Design


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As a follow up to our webinar in October on Last Minute Holiday Tactics for Email Marketers (if you missed it, feel free to check it out here), we thought we should take a gander at how the holiday shopping... More

As a follow up to our webinar in October on Last Minute Holiday Tactics for Email Marketers (if you missed it, feel free to check it out here), we thought we should take a gander at how the holiday shopping season is playing out this year.  We're just past Black Friday & Cyber Monday - what do we know so far?  
 
Early birds got the worms and 40% off cashmere sweaters
 
The online holiday shopping season began even earlier this year. Thanksgiving Day, dubbed "Cyber Kickoff Day," officially kicked off the frenzy. The Kenshoo 2010 Online Holiday Report shows more than 1 billion ad impressions, 30 million clicks, and more than 1 million online sales transactions between Nov. 4 and 29 - an all time high for this period.
 
It's a little early to tell but it looks as if online spending will exceed growth predictions.  comScore recorded a record $1.028 billion in online spending on Cyber Monday 2010, up 16% compared with a year ago. It represents the heaviest online spending day in history, and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold. The research firm estimates for the holiday season, retail e-commerce spending for the first 29 days in the November and December 2010 holiday season online rose 13% to $13.55 billion from the same days in the prior year.
 
Email volume has increased with some great TARGETED campaigns
 
This ecommerce growth is exciting and certainly in line with what we are seeing here at Yesmail with the email channel.  So far, our clients are sending more messages to a more targeted base. Relevancy is key and clients are using customer information to segment and deliver the right message to the right audience.  So far from November 24 - December 5, we've seen a 33% increase of email messages sent from the same period last year and on Nov 28th and 29th we saw over *twice* the number of messages sent.  We expect this growth to continue as marketers ramp up for the final online shopping days. The creativeness of marketers this years is super exciting - particularly in how they are applying free shipping (a necessity this year; we all know consumers expect it) and the multi-message "12 Days" Strategy. Here are a couple good examples.  

Free shipping eases the sting
 
Online spending is sure a lot easier for folks to swallow when retailers throw in free shipping.  The Gap took it one step further - free shipping, everyday. Oh yes they did.  Take a look:


Holiday Themed Multi-Message Strategy is in Full Swing
 
Deal of the day or week, or special holiday themed multi-message campaigns are all the rage.  Take a look at a great example - the 12 Days of Gifts program by HP:


The gist of it all
 
So this is what we know so far... The online channel is really performing with increased consumer online activity and spending. Email marketers have stepped up with smart strategies to continue the growth throughout the season. Big props to savvy email marketers who understand how to tap into their consumer base and deliver some really awesome email strategies and targeted campaigns!
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