Snail mail vs email infographic: old school direct lives on

by Marketing ON 15 March 2013

Snail mail – the original form of direct marketing – lives, according to Australia Post’s ‘Consumer Survey’, showing that the average Australian receives around seven letters per week, with government departments the most prolific users of the medium for communication purposes.

Read rates were high for most sender categories, much higher than standard email open rates, with special interest clubs and government leading the pack with open rates of 79% and 78% respectively. Read rates were less favourable for correspondence from real estate agents and local restaurants, while supermarket communication proved more likely to be read than department store mail.

For all categories respondents of the nationally representative survey preferred to receive correspondence via snail mail than email, although there were high numbers of people with no preference either way. Snail mail is preferred for lengthier or important information while email is preferred for brief information. As could be expected, older generations are more likely to be receptive to mail than email.

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Brands need to offer more to sustain social relationship

by Marketing ON 4 March 2013

A recent study finds that 82% of Australian social media users have connected with a brand through this channel, but almost half of this number subsequently reversed this decision.

In the results gathered from the Always On report, from Latitude Insights and Social Hatch, the main reasons given by the disgruntled 44% of users for ditching a brand were:

Being spammed by the brand, cited by 55%,
boredom with its content, referred to by 36%, and
31% were no longer interested in the product or service.

Yet for all of the issues, Australians still favour interacting with brands through social media as their preferred channel for brand communications.

Users have embraced social media for the offers and discounts delivered by brands, with 30% of consumers using this mode, compared to 31% on email and just 12% on the web.

While about a quarter of those polled prefer to make complaints, look for help or general information via social media, roughly on a par with the web, a smaller 15% or so continue to use email.

The whitepaper discovered that many brands are chasing innovative ways to keep, retain and refresh the social courtship with their customer. These include giving the user a voice by encouraging comment, and informing them first about new products and trends.

The report suggests brands need to offer more than simply push messaging, discounts and competitions to nurture their relationships with customers of social media.

Email remains preferred communication channel: study

by Marketing ON 21 February 2013

Consumers want better experiences from brands’ websites and Facebook pages, but email remains their preferred communication channel, marketing software provider ExactTarget found.

ExactTarget’s ‘Marketers from Mars’ study shows 33% of consumers want marketers to invest more in email, 24% want marketers to invest in the brand’s website and 22% of consumers wish marketers to invest in creating a better Facebook experience.

Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget’s vice president of marketing, explains that consumers are no longer satisfied with “single channel interactions and moving into multi-channel relationships”, and as the report clearly defines, the increase has been somewhat substantial.

“This research provides insight into consumer expectations, offering marketers exclusive new insight on how to avoid the pitfalls of personal biases or becoming a ‘focus group of one’ when creating marketing strategy,” he says.

In terms of the key findings of the research, they include the following:

EMAIL

– 36% of consumers with a smartphone prefer to interact with brands on email, compared to 49% of consumers who do not own a smartphone

– 49% of consumers have made a purchase as a direct result of an email marketing message

– 93% of consumers subscribe to at least one brand’s email, remaining consistent compared to 2010.

FACEBOOK

– 31% of consumers with a smartphone prefer to interact with brands on Facebook compared to 26% of consumers who do not own a smartphone, making it the second most common place consumers look to connect with brands online

– 58% of consumers have liked a brand on Facebook, a 20% increase since 2010

– 21% of consumers have made a purchase as a result of a message they saw on Facebook.

TWITTER

– Among those actively using Twitter, 46% of consumers follow brands to receive advanced notice about new products

– 12% of consumers follow a brand on Twitter, a 7% increase since 2010.

Forrester: Social media ‘barely negligible’ as a sales lead

by Marketing ON 9 October 2012

Social media has a “barely negligible” impact on sales for online retailers, according to a study conducted in the US by Forrester.

The analyst firm’s ‘Purchase Path Of Online Buyers’ report, which tracked 77,000 purchases to identify the most fruitful sources of sales, found that only 1% of sales came from links placed in social media.

The value in social media is more in its slow burn effect, the report’s author, senior analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, writes: “While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in ecommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers.

“The reality is that even the most popular social image-sharing sites (like Pinterest) have failed to move the needle with respect to sales for most retail sites.”

Social media and other ‘top-of-the-funnel’ methods, such as display advertising, are more likely to play a role in the influence chain when it involves multiple touchpoints, which Forrester estimates occurs for 33% of transactions from new customers and 48% of the time for repeat customers.

As a direct source of sales, web marketing mainstays of search and email continue to be the most fruitful despite changes to the interactive marketing landscape and the growing number of shoppers, the report says.

For new customers, the most common single source of sales were direct visits at 20%, organic search at 16% and paid search at 11%. For repeat customers, direct visits at 20%, email at 13% and organic search at 6% brought in the most sales in a single touchpoint interaction. In multiple touchpoint transactions, they remained the most influential with the addition of display ads.

Mulpuru recommends perfecting email marketing techniques, a continual focus on search engine marketing, caution in overestimating the impact of social media and actively promoting simple URLs across a range of channels in order to play to today’s online influence model.

What marketers can learn from spam

by James Schloeffel ON 20 August 2012

There are around 200 billion spam emails sent every day. Recently, a surprising proportion has landed in my inbox. Perhaps more surprising is that I’ve started reading it. On lonely days when I’m working from home with no-one but the postman to keep me company, it’s comforting to know that Nancy from Florida thinks I’m important and special enough to write to. As she puts it, “Friendship is just like life itself, it has no formal and informal beginning, it comes when you less expected it, it starts at any time, anywhere.” My mates never say anything like that.

But then, when it comes to building relationships, we all have different styles. Brigid from Toronto, for example, was somewhat shy when emailing me out of the blue last week: “I`m aware that this may seem like an unconventional approach to starting a friendship,” she wrote. “Not at all,” I replied. “Randomly emailing people I don’t know is how I’ve made most of my friends”. She then asked me for my credit card details which, while a little forward, is not too dissimilar to how my face-to-face relationships usually unfold. We’ve promised to keep in touch.

Mr Charles Norbet, on the other hand, is more of a thinking-man’s spammer. His subject line is usually “Can I trust you?” which is really quite clever. What he’s done there is flipped the whole scenario around. Because a lot of people would instinctively label him an untrustworthy, despicable con artist. What they haven’t considered is his point of view; can he trust the people he is scamming? Fair play to him for being cautious, he’s no doubt been burnt in the past.

Some spammers come across as quite direct in their language, maybe it’s a cultural thing. Mr Koumba Zak started off his email to me with “READ CAREFULLY”. I’m not sure of the need for shouting – I read all spam carefully – but guess you’ve got to cut through the clutter somehow. Director Umah, meanwhile usually opens with the words, “with due respect” which always makes me think I’ve done something wrong. I generally try to make it up to him by buying whatever he’s got for sale (last week, shuttle buses! Still waiting for delivery).

Lately I’ve noticed that a lot of spammers have names very similar to popular politicians, which is a coincidence. Mr Noble Abbott emails me quite a bit (Tony’s morally righteous brother I suppose) as does Carlos Churchill (Winston’s long lost South American grandson). I can only assume that Nancy Howard, who is in touch quite a bit, is some kind of right-wing wet dream. Either that or John is emailing me under a nom de plume. I suppose he values his privacy.

I usually steer clear of all the Viagra and enlargement pill spam – obviously they’ve accidently emailed the wrong guy, no harm done there. But, interestingly, I’ve recently discovered that they’re not always just about sex. Just yesterday I received a note from a company called Enlargement Supplement Services with a subject heading “Oil prices are about to drop”. Turns out the email itself, once I clicked on it, was entirely about Viagra and enlargement pills, but it was useful to know about the state of the oil price all the same; they didn’t have to pass on that info for free.

Speaking of generosity, I get a lot of mail from people wanting to use my bank account to off-load substantial amounts of cash that they’ve unexpectedly inherited. No wonder those African countries are still so poor – every time they fall into some money they want to give it away to Westerners! Keep it for yourself I tell them! But they are quite religious. And insistent.

Not that I take all spammers seriously. Obviously not. I know a dodgy spam email when I see one. Like when I received an email from myself – as in, from my actual email address – suggesting that I buy a Rolex watch at less than half the retail value. Was it possible that I had actually, in a daze, sat down to write an email to myself telling me to “act fast” and buy a watch that I didn’t need? Not really, no; I haven’t come down in the last shower! I responded saying I wasn’t interested.

So is there anything email marketers can learn from spammers? Well of course. Use emotive language, always have a good offer, try a range of different subject lines, don’t be afraid to ask for the sale and, most of all, make sure your list is full of desperate, lonely people who work from home.

Tablet owners shun other devices, unless the tablet’s in the other room

by Marketing ON 5 July 2012

People prefer using tablets for core daily activities, according to a new survey by Gartner, with pursuits such as checking email, reading news, social networking and gaming moving from PCs and smartphones to tablets among owners of the devices.

The study, which asked 500 people owning tablets in Australia, the UK and US to keep seven-day diaries of their device usage, found 81% preferred the tablet to check emails, 69% for reading the news, 63% for checking the weather, 62% for social networking and 60% for gaming.

Conducted at the end of 2011 the research aimed to gain a better understanding of how early adopters of tablets were using their repertoire of connected devices.

Research vice president at Gartner, Carolina Milanesi, says the rapid adoption of tablets is changing how consumers access, create and share content. “The survey found that more than 50% of media tablet owners prefer to read news, magazines and books on screen, rather than on paper. On average, one in three respondents used their media tablets to read a book, compared with 13% for mobile PCs, and 7% for mobile phones.”

At present, the shift from paper to screen-based consumption is not yet a straight substitution of one medium for another. “We do not believe that the ‘paperless home’ will prevail, but it is clear that the ‘less-paper model’ is the new reality,” Milanesi’s colleague, Meike Escherich adds.

“The ongoing convergence of previously distinct devices seems to be turning the market for consumer devices from hardware-centric to usage-centric. The respondents, early adopters of media tablets, said they use their multiple devices interchangeably, rather than substituting one device for another. They seek to use whichever device is at hand – or the most convenient to use at a particular time and for a specific task.”

The findings hinted at the laziness of consumers, with most preferring the tablet but happy to use their smartphone if it means not getting up to go find their tablet device. On weekends, if the laptop hasn’t been taken out, and because less if any time is spent in front of the computer, respondents use their PCs 20% less.

Media tablets play a more dominant role in the home than mobile phones or PCs, with the highest usage taking place in the living room (87% ), the bedroom (65%) and the kitchen (47%). “Weekday evenings are the most popular time to use media tablets, and this usage flattens out during the weekend as people tend to be away from home,” Milanesi says.

The survey also found that 45% of respondents never share their tablet with others, pointing to the device being as personal as a mobile phone in terms of usage and consumer attitude.

Discounts and offers show little pulling power on Twitter

by Marketing ON 4 July 2012

The Twitter user is a unique beast. Most likely to be between 18-24 years of age, they use Twitter to alleviate boredom and receive ‘insider information’, and are not motivated by deals when deciding who to follow or tweet about, but some of them will purchase as a direct results of a tweet.

While Twitter is used by far fewer Australians than email or Facebook, with only 11% of online consumers a member of the service, it is still a valuable way to connect with consumers, according to ExactTarget’s ‘Digital Down Under’ report.

Users of the micro-blogging service are more likely to be ‘influencers’ and use Twitter to receive ‘insider information’ from friends, brands and celebrities, which they are then likely to talk about on blogs or other social media. The search for exclusive content is premeditated, so they can share the information with others and build influence with their own followers.

Unlike many of their consumer counterparts, ‘influencers’ on Twitter are not looking for a deal, the report says. While monetary incentives work well as motivation to engage on Facebook and through email, it is not as likely to inspire users to take action on Twitter.

The ability to tap into influencers may be the most powerful way to use Twitter; according to the report only 5% of online Australians have made a purchase as the direct result of a marketing message they received through Twitter, a figure that rises to 12% among 25-34 year olds.

The study, conducted in March with a sample of 1200 Australians, found that unlike email and Facebook, Twitter isn’t typically seen as a place to work or connect with friends. Users tend to view the channel as a way to alleviate boredom and receive what they perceive to be ‘insider information’ from friends, brands and celebrities.

They’re also characterised by a strong desire to connect, educate and share resources and information with others online. When it comes to following brands, the desire to stay up-to-date dominates with 45% following to keep up with company announcements. 35% follow to received giveaways and 26% to received discounts or promotions, figures which put this driver further down the chain when compared to behaviour on Facebook.

The report notes that users have become more selective about which companies they follow, but remain loyal to those they find most relevant or entertaining and that it’s common for users to vet and reassess who they follow. Once a brand’s tweets are deemed useful they command high levels of attention with more than 50% of Twitter users always reading posts from their favourite companies.

Of those who are active on Twitter, 51% check it at least once per day, and 18% report using Twitter consistently throughout the day. Twitter users are active across other channels too – 70% check Facebook daily and 84% check email daily. The most active users are those aged 18-24 years, among whom 18% of the online population are members.

Group buying slackens forcing operators to innovate

by Marketing ON 22 May 2012

After unprecedented growth over the past two years, the Australian group buying market recorded its second straight quarter of decline, dropping by 14% compared to the previous quarter.

While retail seasonality, reduction in overall number of market participants and reduction in the average price of deals may have impacted on the drop, analysts Telsyte predict growth is likely to continue to slow down unless the industry starts to innovate.

The industry generated $123.5 million in quarter one of 2012, a 14% quarter on quarter decrease, but an increase of 72% on the same period last year, when the industry was still in its infancy.

According to senior research manager at Telsyte, Sam Yip, group buying companies need to innovate to refresh their offer in order to arrest the decline that has started to set in. Yip says the need for better customer segmentation and deal targeting is critical to the continual growth of the industry, as the traditional model of sending emails reaches its peak giving consumers a feeling of ‘deal overload’.

“I don’t think it’s about consumers losing interest,” Yip says. “It’s more about the sites and how they market to the consumers.” Yip points three areas where group buying sites can innovate – deal targeting, customer loyalty and mobile.

“In terms of innovation it’s around the site side of things… innovation around customer segmentation, customer data, targeted deals and innovation around generating loyalty as well. We haven’t really seen any of the sites push to get consumers loyal to their own sites, whether by a point system or by specific deals. Thirdly, it’s around the technology, especially around mobile which is a massive opportunity based on mobile penetration at the moment.”

A number of the group buying sites, including Groupon, LivingSocial and Spreets have launched their own apps, but none have included the functionality to offer deals based on consumers’ current location in real time. Telsyte believes there is an unprecedented opportunity for location-based group buying offers as smartphone penetration has already exceeded half the Australian population.

However, not all members of the industry believe it should be the one to champion mobile coupons and location-based deals. CEO of Spreets, Dean McEvoy, told Marketing that location-based, real time deals had been left out of the company’s recent app launch intentionally, with the momentum for this type of service sitting in Facebook’s or Google’s court. In the US, Groupon has been struggling to implement its location-based service, Groupon Now, which has seen a decline in success since its launch.

Nevertheless, Yip believes the approach, which has been dubbed ‘SoLoMo’, has merit for the group buying business model. “The ability to integrate mobile social networking with deals, offer location-based deals, and allow merchants to push deals immediately to customers within their vicinity will be the pillars of growth in the next two years,” he says.

“When it comes to mobile it’s not just around innovation with the consumers, the applications they use and how they buy, it’s about how to get merchants using mobile to push deals, location based services, real-time deals.”

Telsyte expects the group buying market to exceed $600 million in calendar year 2012 and continue growing towards a $1 billion industry by 2016. In 24 months, the industry has gone from concept to becoming a key contributor to the Australian ecommerce industry with nearly $690 million worth of goods and services purchased through 14.5 million vouchers sold to date.

The top eight group buying sites for quarter one 2012 were Groupon, Scoopon, LivingSocial, Spreets, Cudo, Deals.com.au, Ourdeal, and Ouffer, which combined generate more than 90% of total industry revenue.

Operators lost $13.9b to social messaging in 2011

by Marketing ON 22 February 2012

The SMS star is dying according to a report from technology research firm Ovum, which estimates operators lost billions in revenue to social messaging in 2011.

Estimates from ‘The Casualties of Social Messaging’ report value the impact of increased use of internet-based social messaging via smartphones at $8.7bn in 2010 and $13.9bn in 2011 in lost revenues for telecommunication providers globally.

The popularity of social messaging, the use of social apps or websites to send messages instead of traditional SMS, MMS, or email techniques, is forecast to continue to grow as smartphone penetration increases.

Consumer analyst at Ovum, Neha Dharia, warns telecommunications operators will need to rework their legacy services to secure future profitability in the messaging market.

“Social messaging has disrupted traditional services, and operators’ revenues in this area will come under increasing pressure,” Dharia comments. “Tapping into the creativity of app developers, forming industry-wide collaborations, and leveraging their usage data and strong relationships with subscribers are the key ways for operators to ensure that they hold their ground in the messaging market.”

Industry-wide collaboration alongside innovation and realignment of revenue schemes to more social models will be the key to growth in the messaging realm according to Ovum’s report, which notes the development as an opportunity as well as a threat.

Telcos have the advantage of controlling the entire messaging structure (through access to the user’s phone number and usage data), billing relationship and most of the services to which the user is exposed.

Dharia goes on to say that the most important factor to future messaging revenue will be co-operation between the telcos themselves: “They are no longer competing merely among themselves, but must work together to face the challenge from the major internet players.”

“Working closely with handset vendors will also be important; they control some of the most popular social messaging apps, and can also provide preloaded applications.”

Image credit: EronsPics.

Group buying’s potential remains unfulfilled + infographic

by Chris Byrne ON 15 February 2012

The juggernaut group buying sector exceeded revenue expectation in 2011 and posted a phenomenal 650% year-on-year growth. Its ability to tap into both the power of the ‘crowd’ and a post-GFC consumer trend toward thrift has proven to be a lucrative combination for the 100-odd businesses that now populate the young industry.

It seems getting consumers to open their wallets in 2011 was as simple as offering a hefty discount and making them feel clever for saving 80% on 100% of the money they wouldn’t have spent to begin with.

But while group buying is nothing less than a runaway success – according to Telsyte, Groupon Australia alone grew 1,356% in the second quarter of last year – it is not yet living up to its promise. It’s the talented youngster, still to knuckle down and realise its potential. And if it’s not careful, the bubble may burst; sales may already be weakening with a 9% drop in the market over the last quarter of the year.

According to data from research group TNS, only 22 percent of Australians are current users of group buying sites, and a further 30% are yet to hear of or understand the concept, telling us there are opportunities to both encourage more repeat customers and recruit new users.

The most prolific users are 35-49 year-old females. Males, Gen Y (particularly younger) and Baby Boomers have not joined the stampede to the same extent.

Engagement among men who have signed up is significantly lower than females with more having unsubscribed from the daily emails and more claiming to be bored with the type of deals on offer. This stands to reason, with the deals dominated by categories which traditionally fall into the female leisure shopping domain.

And the daily emails these businesses send to their subscribers polarise their audience – half (49 percent) find the deals to lack personal relevance, while the rest (43 percent) look forward to receiving them.

While the sector has been phenomenally successful so far, it is yet to put into practice basic elements of targeting via email or mobile in Australia. Aside from niche operators, group buying sites make little effort to send relevant deals to their customers, flinging bikini wax deals at men and family holiday offers at singles left, right and centre. The market operates in a deal rather than data-driven manner, bombarding its subscriber base with offers of limited relevance.

Imagine how successful group buying businesses could be if, instead of indiscriminately emailing subscribers, they tailored deals by gender, age, interests, past buying behaviour or even current location. Groupon’s global chief executive, Andrew Mason, appears to be taking this commonly held customer complaint seriously. Upon releasing the company’s earnings to investors, which detailed a $42.7 million loss for the company to end 2011, he hinted at plans to deliver more targeted deals.

The company, which already delivers location-aware deals through its Groupon Now app in 31 markets, intends to invest in features, which according to Mason, will allow it to respond to requests to “stop sending me pole-dancing lessons.”

A spokesperson for Scoopon also confirmed that they’re looking to introduce location-based deals to their mobile app in 2012.

With analysts tipping that many in the crowded market will fold, fulfilment of group buying’s potential will come to those who deliver deals that their subscribers want, every time, when and where they want them.

INFOGRAPHIC: Group buying Australian market wrap 2011.

Click to open larger version.

Trash email! Communication in the modern workplace

by Yvette Adams ON 17 January 2012

As I write, the National Broadband Network (NBN) is being rolled out throughout Australia. The roll out represents the single biggest investment in infrastructure by any Australian Government in history.

However, many business owners bemoan the $50 billion investment, arguing that they can do most everything they need to do online already, and that faster internet will not make any difference to their day to day lives. But what many do not realise is that the arrival of the NBN represents an opportunity to do things differently, so the trick is really in being open-minded about new possibilities, and translating this change into your business.

Over the coming weeks I’ll explore a variety of business areas and sectors which will be presented with new ways to do business with the arrival of the NBN to their area, and hence faster internet. I welcome your feedback and suggestions on other aspects and sectors you’d like to see covered in future posts.

Communication

I am not too young to remember the days when the fax and phone ruled communication in the workplace. Indeed, one of my first jobs for a government department involved standing over a fax machine for a good part of the day and sending out press releases to every journalist in the country!

When email arrived, we all rejoiced. No more standing over fax machines as the sender, and no more making sure the thing was on, full of ink and full of paper as the recipient.

But interestingly, email has gone from our saving grace in business communications to our biggest bug bear, with many people hard pressed to stay on top of an overflowing inbox despite their best attempts to use filters, rules, forwards and other associated tricks. Thankfully, this is just one area I can see being revolutionised by the coming of the NBN.

While many alternative forms of communication such as VoIP (voice over internet protocol), Skype, live chat, video conferencing and social networks already exist, to date these have not really become mainstream business communication tools. With the arrival of the NBN, their potential becomes much more of a reality.

In my own business, based on the Sunshine Coast (which will not receive NBN roll out for 6 years or so L), already we use a range of online solutions to minimise the amount of emails we receive. My staff know that they should only send me an email if absolutely necessary and that my preference is to receive a Skype text chat whereever possible.

Using Skype’s text chat function for basic internal queries such as ‘Where is the file for ABC client kept?’, forwarding contact details or transferring a file to work on is a much better solution than an email complete with a superfluous subject header and signature. The communication is still date stamped, the sender identifiable and files can most certainly be attached.

Now I’ll admit that as a creative agency we don’t deal with any particularly sensitive data, and that some of these strategies may not suit every situation in every industry. However, it’s important to remember that once upon a time emails were not considered formal or legally binding enough for certain situations, whereas today they are in many cases. If enough people move with the times, the legislation will likely have to move with it.

For large scale organisations who are suffering internal email overload and high telephone bills, there are many alternative communication solutions in the marketplace, and finding the right one really depends on analysing the company’s specific needs.

Some companies have found investments in VoIP systems have been a source of significant cost savings and the use of this technology becomes more realistic with the advent of the NBN.

Microblogging networks (such as Twitter), blogging, and use of other social networking applications increases people’s ability to communicate with a multitude, discuss issues virtually, think critically about issues informed by many perspectives, and provide alternatives to make decisions. Microblogging also provides the mechanism to ask a question, express a thought, ignite discussions, or share information. Indeed I know of public facing organisations with significant call centres who are transferring staff from the call centre to focus on the management and response of their Twitter accounts, such is the decrease in the number of calls and the increase in the level of Twitter conversations!

Blogs and other social network platforms provide the collaborative tools to add more content and context – there have been cases of private Facebook groups being used successfully for internal communications within organisations. Yammer is yet another social network of an enterprise kind which many companies have successfully implemented for better internal communications.

When it comes to collaborating on documents, email is really ineffective. Much better solutions include Google Docs where you can create spread sheets, documents (as per Microsoft Word), presentations and more, and share them with relevant staff members. Collaborators can see when others are working on the live document (a great reference for meetings) and/or share the document once updated, ensuring effective version control.

Similarly, for those managing multiple projects, email falls down on several fronts. More effective is an online project management system of some description (for those we use see our website) which allows you to set up message trails and grant access to team members who are involved in different aspects of any given project. In that way, rather than hunting high and low in your inbox for who said what and when, provided everyone uses it effectively you have one tidy trail of messages related to any given project and can dip in and out and know exactly what is going on.

One must also not forget webinars as an alternative form of communication (virtual meetings), and face to face meetings which can get everyone ‘on the same page’.

In short, high-speed broadband presents a world of opportunities if email overload is getting you and your company down. But ultimately a transition will require a careful look at what specific problems you are facing, careful selection of the systems and tools which will best suit your situation, and mapping out a transition process, complete with training.

Solving the unsubscribe riddle

by Marketing ON 1 June 2011

Campaign: Customer Engagement Overhaul

Client: Fabric.com

Digital Marketing Provider: Silverpop

Background

Fabric.com is the world’s leading online fabric store selling customer-measured fabric. Founded in 1999, it has a loyal customer base of sewing enthusiasts from all over the world. In 2008, Amazon.com bought Fabric.com to expand its selection of sewing and craft products.

Until recently, Fabric.com had a fairly basic email program in place. Emails were sent from an in-house solution to the company’s entire database without customisation or segmentation.

Fabric.com knew that it needed to improve its email marketing strategies urgently. It was failing to communicate with customers in a targeted way and the team could see that this was having a profound effect on its bottom line. “Depending on the type of product being purchased, each type of Fabric.com buyer purchases their products differently, so it was important to take into account individual buyer purchasing behaviours when communicating with them via email,” says Melanie Coombs, email marketing manager, Fabric.com.

It was this realisation that triggered Fabric.com’s comprehensive search of the market for email marketing solutions that would fit its current requirements, but also grow and support the company’s future needs.

Objectives

The team at Fabric.com knew they needed to move away from the ‘batch and blast’ approach, which was causing issues with email deliverability. They wanted to stay competitive and take communication with customers to a new level, and so turned to an outsourced email marketing solution to overcome two main limitations of the current in-house solution:

limited reporting capabilities, and
an inability to provide analysis on the success of each email delivery.

As Coombs explains, it was vital for Fabric.com to gain better insight into list maintenance and data reporting analytics to ensure the retailer’s ongoing success. “We needed a solution to ensure we were getting the reporting metrics needed, as well as the ability to track email impact and conversions.”

Fabric.com considered several email solution providers before choosing Silverpop’s Engage solution. “We decided to select Silverpop because of its strong reputation, email industry expertise and its proven success with retail clients,” Coombs says. “Engage would allow us to create constant touch points with our customers and prospects throughout the purchasing life cycle.” This is exactly what Fabric.com needed.

Strategy

Using Silverpop’s sophisticated email marketing solution, Fabric.com is now able to segment its list into several different groups ranging from its most loyal customers to those considered ‘inactive’. Based on different levels of purchasing behaviour, Fabric.com sends out highly personal and specialised offers. These life cycle emails offer enticing purchase discounts with the goal of keeping loyal customers engaged and renewing relationships with inactive customers.

Fabric.com’s customer life cycle emails include:

‘Happy Anniversary’ emails celebrating the anniversary of a customer’s first purchase with the company
‘Happy Birthday’ emails celebrating a customer’s birth date
‘We Miss You’ emails for those customers that purchased previously, but have not done so in the past year
‘We Want You Back’ emails for those customers that purchased previously, but have not done so in the last 12 to 18 months, and
‘Secret Sale’ emails for all other customers, who do not fit into the above categories, plus all prospects.

In addition to its automated customer life cycle emails, Fabric.com regularly sends out broadcast emails about sales and promotions, new products, sales reminders and ‘Deals of the Day’.

Fabric.com also implemented Coremetrics’ LIVEmail integration with Engage to send out two different series of triggered emails. The first automated campaign is a cart abandonment series. Sent to people who abandoned their shopping carts within the last two days, it includes a strong one-click call to action for recipients to return to their carts. The second automated campaign is a two-week follow-up on those customers that bought a swatch and have not made a purchase yet. It creates a sense of urgency by reminding recipients that the fabric they were interested in may not be in stock much longer. “We decided to integrate Coremetrics’ LIVEmail and Silverpop’s Engage because we saw an opportunity to further engage with our customers and drive additional revenue,” says Coombs.

Finally, Fabric.com developed a robust preference centre to help ensure customers only receive relevant content in their emails. When consumers sign up for email, they are asked about the types of emails they would like to receive (‘Deals and Steals’, ‘Just Arrived’ and ‘Deal of the Day’), as well as other questions such as their birthday, types of sewing preferred and sewing expertise level. Fabric.com even includes a reminder for subscribers to add its email address to their contacts or address book, which most companies only do within their mailings.

Execution

Once Fabric.com had spent some time learning about the various email marketing solutions available today, it quickly made its decision to partner with Silverpop. Silverpop’s extensive experience working with a broad range of retailers worldwide and the Engage solution’s flexibility and level of sophistication were a powerful combination that couldn’t be superseded.

Within weeks of implementing its new email marketing solution Fabric.com was reaping the rewards of a much more sophisticated, automated solution that was directly impacting the business bottom line.

Results

Fabric.com’s automated life cycle marketing emails did so well, Fabric.com decided to make them a regular part of its email strategy. “We are very pleased with the results of our customer life cycle email campaigns,” says Coombs. “These automated life cycle campaigns more than doubled open and click-through rates and increased conversion by more than 40 percent.”

For Fabric.com, one of the benefits of implementing triggered campaigns is that they can help bring in a steady revenue stream throughout the week and generate orders on a more even basis to help with warehouse workflow. “Our automated campaigns enable us to plan better,” Coombs says. “They allow us to accomplish a lot in the most hands-off manner possible. The power we have with Silverpop is fantastic.”

Much of Fabric.com’s success is a result of its best practice approach to segmentation and list maintenance, which all starts with its preference centre. Understanding the preferences of its customer at a detailed level has helped the company send consistently relevant messages. As a result, Fabric.com has halved the number of opt-outs on its email.

Fabric.com has also had success with its cart abandonment series using Silverpop Engage and a Coremetrics LIVEmail integration to alert shoppers when they have left an item in the shopping cart. “Our cart abandonment campaign showed positive results immediately,” says Coombs. “In fact, within the first week, our results showed that our average order size has increased by 20 percent on cart abandonment emails.”