Category: Email Marketing News

Last week, I explained that videos and email marketing messages go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Click-through rates for marketing emails increase two or three times with the inclusion of video! This is in part because increasingly larger numbers of consumers (we’re talking trillions!) want to spend time watching online video, and also because it’s becoming easier for them to watch videos sent via email.

Today, I’ll offer some tips on how marketers can create videos that consumers will want to receive via email and watch online. I’ll aso explain explain how marketers can analyze the results of their video email marketing campaigns with mobileStorm’s technology.

Because some companies might not have tried their hand at creating videos, here are some things we at mobileStorm learned while making our online commercials and comedy shows.

• Online video is not the same as a feature-length movie or network TV show. Its purpose is to quickly pique interest in a brand. Thus, it should start off with a “bang” and not be much longer than a few minutes.
• Links should either lead to a video posted on a site like YouTube or MySpace, or else should lead to specially-designed landing pages. Never use embedded video in email!
• Providing your video in the smallest file size possible, but still retaining a satisfactory image quality, is part of best practices for all Internet video. Flash compression is often the best comproise of file size and quality, making it ideal for online media.

Once you’ve deployed a video email marketing campaign, you need to determine how well it did. Read the rest of this entry »

mobileStorm’s six messaging types for marketers are all conducive to our stance that multi-channel campaigns are best. We’ve also long suggested that marketers be multi-channel within a single message–for example, by including video in an email marketing message, which engages the recipient and also makes the message viral.

We’re so forward-thinking that it’s only been recently that the rest of the marketing industry has caught up, and realized that–like chocolate and peanut butter–video and email can be combined into one message to really entice consumers. Two great tastes taste great together, indeed!

• According to analyst David Daniels at Forrester Research, putting a video link within an email, such as a clickable screen shot, “can increase click-through rates by two to three times.”
• Mr. Daniels also notes in his recent report that between July 2008 and July 2009, 17 percent of marketing executives surveyed planned to use video in email. Marketers are getting competitive with video email!
• Meanwhile, Nielsen Online reported that in April of this year, 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month; total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago, while streams-per-viewer are up 27 percent and time-per-viewer is up 58 percent. Consumers love watching online video!
• Technological advances make viewing video in an email more seamless for the consumer. For example, Gmail Labs now has a feature that allows users to turn on previews of YouTube videos. Once consumers set this on their accounts, they’re able to watch YouTube videos from inside the email message. As word spreads, marketers will reach increasingly more Gmail users with video emails!

So savvy marketers will want to beat the competition before it beats them. This requires them to: (1) post videos where they can easily be found, and (2) incorporate video into their email marketing messages. This may be easier said than done, but with mobileStorm’s technology and expertise, it’ll still be relatively easy. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, Bredin Business Information put out a study about the marketing goals of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). What’s particularly striking about the report, though, is how digital messaging can help these companies reach their goals.

Here’s a look at some of the data offered in the study, and how digital message marketing–emails and text messages that consumers choose to receive–fits into these objectives.

Marketers said their biggest challenges in 2009 include growing business with limited resources (15 percent) and increasing awareness (15 percent). Email and SMS marketing can be very cost-effective, especially with a do-it-yourself system that can tackle several message types with one platform (like mobileStorm’s). So marketers from smaller businesses with limited budgets can easily afford these types of campaigns. Meanwhile, both email and text messages increase brand awareness because they are extremely viral. That is, they are often and easily forwarded from the initial recipient to several new ones–especially if they contain valuable information such as a limited sale or a space on the VIP list for a one-time party.

Retention and acquisition of customers: 48 percent said they are balancing their acquisition and retention efforts this year, 32 percent are concentrating more on acquisition, and 20 percent are focusing more on retention. Digital messages help marketers both acquire and retain customers. A multi-channel campaign draws consumers in–that is, it uses other media to advertise the short code and keyword, or the Web form, for consumers to contact in order to receive texts or emails, respectively. These consumers can be converted when the messages offer coupons, new product announcements, or other information that encourages the sale. Then once these customers see these benefits, they’ll likely continue to patronize the company in question.

Marketers will spend less on market research in 2009 than in 2008. Because of this, marketers will want to do their own research. The right marketing platform will let them do so. It can sort message subscribers according to geographic, demographic, and eve”n psychographic” categories. It can also let the marketer know which campaigns were the most–or least–effective, so that they can improve future campaign efforts. Marketers can thus arm themselves with home-grown research that lets them cater specifically to their own customers, as well as consumers like them who they want to reach.

Seventy-four percent of the world’s digital messages were sent via mobile in January 2009, says TNS Global. Said TNS’ Sam Curtis, “As mobile devices slowly take away usage share from fixed services in developed markets, in emerging markets consumers are more likely to bypass fixed communications altogether and go straight to mobiles.”

That means that to reach a consumer, it’s best to try them on their mobile phones. Of course, you can probably do that with email, since as the report says, 69 percent of North American mobile emailers use the feature daily. The bigger takeaway from this report is the utter reliance that increasingly more consumers have on their phones.

Thus, it’s important to contact consumers using every message type available on a handset–not just email and MIM (mobile instant message), but also SMS. After all, text messaging is something available on the most basic handsets being sold today. So a much larger number of consumers can be reached via SMS than they can with mobile email and MIM, features that require the more advanced smartphone type of handset.

As for consumers who do have smartphones? Why, SMS helps the marketer make a campaign multi-channel. Think about it: Consumers can browse the Internet and read marketing emails on their smartphones; these are great places to put a call-to-action asking them to sign up for promotional text messages, such as mobile coupons.

If marketers don’t have a mobile database, then they’re missing out big-time.

Finally, those folks at Google are earning their free lunches.

Today the tech company announced that its Gmail service now has an Undo Send button that lets people stop an email message. Handy for when you wrote that angry rant just to blow off steam, not to actually dispatch. Or when you accidentally hit “reply all” (a pet peeve of many colleagues here at mobileStorm). Or when you have second thoughts about sending spam and realize your sender reputation is more important.

Unlike penning a snap-reaction email, though, the “Undo Send’ requires a little forethought. You have to go into “Settings” and the the “Labs” tab to activate it. And it only delays the message for five seconds–so the service doesn’t replace personal responsibility.

Small inconvenience. And a heck of a lot more useful than the drunk-messager test Google crowed about last fall!

Some marketers have only recently realized the importance of email. Others think it’s old hat. But true forward-thinkers are already taking their campaigns to the next level.

A business blogger at the Sydney Morning Herald points out a particular email discussion that happened at the Adtech conference held in Sydney this week, regarding “trigger-based” messages. Trigger-based email is sent according to a consumer’s particular behavior or preferences. For example, in an emailed company newsletter, there might be a link about a particular product. When the reader clicks on that link, this then triggers another email sent to the customer, offering a special sales offer regarding that product. Such links don’t have to be about a company’s product; a consumer’s birthday or purchasing preferences are other types of triggers.

Trigger-based messages, then, ensure that a brand remains engaged with and relevant to consumers by giving them important updates. The Herald blog points to HSBC Bank in Australia, which used trigger-based email marketing “to keep consumers engaged and informed” during their loan application process. This was done because many loan applicants shop around with several banks, and HSBC did not want them to go elsewhere for their loans. The upshot? HSBC Bank saw an approximately 65 percent improvement in acceptance of home loans.

Think of trigger-based email as the master’s degree after getting a bachelor degree in email marketing: The rules of email marketing best practices must foremost be understood and used. The customer must be the one to subscribe to get email messages, and the company must explain what to expect in these messages–as well as how often to expect them. As always, relevance is the key–if you start sending messages of the type that were not expected, the consumer might ignore your email and/or cancel the subscription.

Of course, trigger-based messaging can only work if the marketer really knows the customer. So it’s important to use an email-sending platform that will gather certain information, both demographic and “psychographic,” into a user-friendly database. Once such a database is compiled, the marketer can start creating triggers based on consumers’ preferences and personal profiles. (And maybe this database creation can be accelerated by using a product-click triggered email campaign first.)

Clearly, marketers who aren’t yet in email had better get cracking. Their competitors have already mastered the basics!

A company’s first instinct during a recession is to reduce costs, and rightly so. The trick can be how to figure out what’s truly necessary, and what’s a luxury. Bankrupt bailout-recipient Wells Fargo’s Vegas blowout? Definitely a luxury. Marketing programs? When they result in high ROI–like email marketing–they’re indeed a necessity.

eMarketer said recently that email remains appealing thanks to its low cost and high ROI, and estimates that email spend will increase to $488 million in 2009 from $472 million in 2008. The same article also notes Epsilon data released in January shows that deliverability rates remained the same in the third quarter of 2008 as in the same quarter a year earlier.

There are two lessons here. First, one’s business rivals will likely be using email marketing–and thus one must engage in these campaigns, too, in order to remain competitive. Second, email’s efficacy remains steady, unlike other types of marketing–so if one must cut out a certain marketing activity, it had better not be email. The medium is a bare necessity for marketers in this economy.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me”

The Monday after Thanksgiving has become known as Cyber Monday, officially starting the online shopping season. It’s almost as well-known as Black Friday, the day after T-day that kicks off the bricks-and-mortar shopping countdown.

No wonder that 80 percent of online retailers had Cyber Monday-specific campaigns ready, according to the National Retail Federation. The NFR cites research showing that email messaging is one of the most popular campaigns being deployed–32.7 percent of those surveyed said they’ll be using email to promote their websites and sales specials.

Something that can be adapted to message marketing is the fact that 24.5 percent of retailers said they would be promoting one-day sales. mobileStorm client Broad River Furniture enjoyed great success with limited “secret” sales it announced only to SMS message subscribers. If you missed the boat this Cyber Monday, then consider having a one-day sale later this season–and use texts to promote it. SMS gives consumers the feeling of urgency (“I’d better hurry since it’s only one day!”) and personal relationship with the retailer (“wow, they sent me a text!”).

With message marketing (via email, SMS, RSS, or whatever platform you choose) you can immediately nab holiday-busy consumers’ interest, and offer them an incentive to buy from you–and not your competitor.

While the world watched U.S. citizens’ votes with a careful eye on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on something pretty important too: It decided to allow the unlicensed use of the white space television spectrum.

This means that a big chunk of radio airwaves–those being freed up once all U.S. TV broadcasts go digital early next year–can now be used to create wireless broadband networks. In turn, we soon could see Wi-Fi Internet access as democratic as this week’s election was.

“Opening the white spaces will allow for the creation of a Wi-Fi on steroids. It has the potential to improve wireless broadband connectivity and inspire an ever-widening array of new Internet-based products and services for consumers,” said FCC chairman Kevin Martin.

The creation of this “Wi-Fi on steroids” has innumerable implications for anyone using digital communications. For marketers, it means that their email messages will reach people more often, and in more places, than ever before. Travelers with laptops will be on the Internet much more, since they won’t have to struggle to find a wireless connection. Notebook-users on a budget could connect to the Internet at home, too.

Meanwhile the latest smart phones are being equipped with Wi-Fi. Consumers without a 3G connection, and/or a special Web plan with their cellular providers, will still be able to access the Internet on their phones thanks to Wi-Fi. Their latest mobile email messages–including marketing messages–will always be at their fingertips.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”

Sure, consumers are spending increasingly more time on social networks and news/entertainment websites. But that doesn’t mean they respond well to the adverts on them.

Instead, according to research conducted in part by Ball State University’s
Center for Media Design, consumers prefer that marketers contact them via email messages and direct mail.

“One of the key findings in this research is that 18- to 34-year-olds claim they are more likely to be influenced to make purchases based on email marketing messages and direct mail than marketing messags on social networks,” said Mike Boxham, director of insight and research for the university’s Center for Media Design.

Among ”young homemakers,” the study found, more than 50 percent preferred to receive marketing messages via email and direct mail. And teens were most influenced to make purchases by direct email and email messages, followed by SMS marketing messages.

The finding are surprising to some, considering how much consumers use other forms of digital media. But people don’t always like to be “bothered” while they’re enjoying themselves. They’d rather be contacted via messages for which they subscribed.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm

“I’d rather you text me”