May 12, 2008

Your Receipt is in the email

Shoppers who want to save some trees soon will find a new option for rejecting receipts at the checkout counters of major retailers.

A service that will enable consumers to receive digital receipts through big box stores, such as Best Buy and Target, is set to launch May 16.

I have always loved how Apple stores do this for me and it is about time others do as well. I don't need any more paper receipts crammed in my wallet or pocket. They get lost or thrown away. In the inbox is a great solution. Not sure the "green" factor as some studies I have been reading actually put data use in higher carbon/greenhouse gas levels than commercial airlines by 2010, but it makes sense none the less.

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9937567-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

My question is have they thought about making this a transaction email marketing opportunity instead of JUST a receipt. If they follow best practices of a 20% use of the email for cross marketing/promotion, they might just drive online or even back to store sales with an offer....

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:01 AM | Permalink

May 1, 2008

Designing Emails for Ecommerce

So many examples to show you, but this one really hits on the simplicity of ecommerce email marketing. What is so special about this? Well not special, but it just clearly communicates the levels of interaction and what you can get by clicking the links. Not over the top, not too much copy, and the value proposition is right there in every call to action bucket.

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Often times I see emails with so many things to do, too much copy, and not laid out in a format that is going to display right in the inbox. This layout rocks.

Now to have full disclosure this designer used to work for eROI. So he earned his chops at the school of hard knocks. And it just doesn't hurt as well that this designer is also my younger brother. Nice work Bryan, you make me proud that you stayed awake at eROI U.

Best part about this is his using Twitter as another communication vehicle in the footer. Not over the top, but right in link with his audience of young urban hipsters. Guess the tech addictive measures run in the family as well.

Still time to get your own shirt or limited run hoodie from his new line.

Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 4:42 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2008

Moving from Transaction to Interaction

As a creative interactive agency, we buy images from online sources for web design and email campaign projects. But we don't always opt in for the email newsletter from the check out. I am sure that this is also the case for you and even for your own customers. So you can message them around transactional emails, product updates of products they bought and even ones like this that ASK them if they want to get on the newsletter list. If you do it right you can have a good lift into your house list. But automatically placing them on an email newsletter list is not the right thing to do and you will end up losing them or at the worse end of the spectrum, offending them.

So here is a good example of what Corbis did to reach out to me. Does not hurt that it is pretty to boot.

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Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 6:00 AM | Permalink

February 20, 2008

Still A Reason to Talk

How many of you have run or entered a contest online? I bet the majority of you as contests are still like crack out there to the general population. But how many of you have never heard from the brand after the contest has wrapped up? So many contests fail to use the YOU HAVE NOT WON email to it's full transactional potential. Many brands we see let the winner know but have a hard time seeing how they can use this as a "award" touch point to those that did not win.

Timberland's example illustrates this well by using the event to "award" a 20% off gift code on your next purchase. Now it is not that they could not have sent this type of email out on it's own, but the fact that they closed down the campaign full circle and did not leave people out to dry or wondering if they ever made the announcement.

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Think about this from a consumer perspective next time you run a promotion like this. Email is a great channel to keep delivering an incentive even when you aren't the winner.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:39 AM | Permalink

January 23, 2008

Creating a Unique Landing Page

This page was not sent in an email campaign, but passed on to me from a co-worker here at eROI. After watching what should be a standard ecommerce page it made me think that this is an amazing idea of how to create a landing page that drives a person through the page from top to bottom and then back.

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. It creates a connection, even when you cannot read it.

If this was a landing page experience I would wager it would not only convert, but also drive people to talk about it and share it. Completely unexpected and very powerful.

Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink

January 15, 2008

Look Beyond Money - Building Customer Value

We released a new guide today in our Resource Center.

Customer value -- revenue, loyalty, advocacy

Brands preach that they are trying to build a base of customers who will keep coming back year after year, but all of their marketing and sales strategies point to a one-time sale so they can get their short-term revenue up. so, how can you stay away from this poorly designed sales strategy? Build customer value. Value comes in multiple forms -- each requiring more involvement from your customer -- revenue, loyalty, and advocacy. the following is a brief description of each and some ideas for metrics you can use to measure each.

Don't just focus on price for the one-time sale to a short-term customer, build customer value. Value comes in multiple forms -- each requiring more involvement from your customer -- Revenue, Loyalty, and Advocacy. Learn how to make brand advocates out of your customer base.

If you have not visited our new resource center, now is the time. The new center allows a one time registration to keep track for you of what you have and have not read allowing you to focus on growing your knowledge through our experiences.

Get the PDF today

Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 8:00 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2008

Did You Forget the Links?

I subscribe to over 20 auto brand email newsletters to see what they are doing on the large scale. And from what I have learned, no one is perfect. Even a great brand like Mercedes Benz drops the ball from time to time. As an owner, I thought this was a good email. Cross selling me on some items I might be interested in for my car. Well as I dug deeper in the content (which as 500 pixels wide and over 1600 deep, what email clients are they targeting?) I was shocked to see that there were not any links I could use to drive deeper into a product site and get info and make a purchasing decision.

Missed opportunity, but without failure there are not any lessons to learn from. Fail Harder....

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Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 5:18 AM | Permalink

December 31, 2007

Deep Linking in Ecommerce Email

With the online only brand of Piperlime created by the Gap company, they have been attacking email marketing with deeper links in email campaigns. I was actually excited to see that when I clicked on the SIZES in the email that it actually took my deep into the shoes by size. I know that this might sound logical, but so many times I have seen links that take me into a category and then have me make another selection. It only makes sense that they are taking you right into the action.

But here is another thought... now they have more info on me even if I have not purchased yet. Now they have the data to target me based on sizes that would meet my needs when they have products to clear out. I am interested to see if this will actually be data that they use only for the fact that so often in ecommerce emails I click through only to find that what I was interested in is no longer available in my size.

Whether it is size or anything else, you need to live up to the end users expectations of the offer.

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Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 6:49 AM | Permalink