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Review of SCORE's Sign-Up Process

April 8th, 2009

Yesterday I was going through a list of newsletters that I am not yet a member of and noticed that the small business resource group SCORE was one of them. After going to their site to opt-in, I noticed several good and bad things going on with their process. Let’s walk through it. (Images below)

Step 1. On their home page, there is a link in the upper left for ‘Get eNewsletters’ – Points for having this above the fold, but negative points for not having the option to fill in my address right there and submit. Every additional page I have to go to is another opportunity for me to leave and not complete the process. Get my most basic info (email address) right away while I’m interested and then ask for more information.

Step 2. After clicking that link I get to a page with a few options. First they give the option to view a sample of their newsletter. Major points here – it’s a good idea to give a preview of what a subscriber is going to receive. Set expectations from the beginning and you’ll start the relationship on a good note. Major points were also deducted on this page, as it asked me again to follow a link to sign up. I already said I wanted to sign up on the home page, why must I go to a 3rd page just to enter my email address? This is a major flaw. If they must go to this 2nd page, put the actual opt-in field here, in addition to the ‘preview’ link.

Step 3. Finally on the 3rd page they ask for my email address.

Step 4. On the 4th page (yes, 4 clicks and counting to sign up for the newsletter) They are asking for a lot more information, but it’s unclear if I have been signed up already. I thought that’s what I did on the previous page. But with no welcome email, I continue on. On this page they ask me to confirm my email, plus make First Name, Last Name, City, State and Zip required fields. Additionally, they have a security check for input of text from an image. For the contact info, that’s great that they are collecting it as it will be useful for segmentation and personalization later, but why make it required? It’s a nice to have, not a must have. For the email confirmation, why not have that on the previous page, or just have a double opt-in (where I must confirm by clicking a link in an email)? They do give me newsletter options, so are on the right track of an email preference center, but are way off on so many other elements.

Step 5. Finally on the 5th page I get a confirmation and the shortly after I receive a welcome email.

This 5 page process could have been reduced to 2 or 3 pages. On the home page they could have had a quick opt-in field and then taken me to a 2nd page to put in more personalization info (after I was already in the system and about to receive a confirmed or double opt-in email).

If they didn’t want to mess with the home page, they could have left the link as it was there, and then on the 2nd page had the opt-in form with a preview image on that page of their newsletter. On a 3rd page they could offer more personalization options.

I’d be very curious what their sign-up conversion rate is, from start to finish. While they are making efforts to implement some sound best practices for list acquisition, SCORE is dropping the ball with some red flag mistakes.

Screen Grabs from the process (click image to enlarge):

Home Page

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Posted in Analysis of Live Emails, B2B, Email Marketing Strategy, List Building/Opt-In, Personalization, Red Flag Mistakes, Segmentation | No Comments »

Call Tracking with Email

April 5th, 2009

One of the reasons internet marketing pros love the online channel is the availability of metrics to track initiative (and site) performance.

There is no exception with email marketing. With proper analytics integration, we can see how much money (or how many leads) a specific email campaign produced; compare the dollar value of different links within the email; segment out high-value subscribers for more targeted campaigns; and the list goes on. This is key for any email initiative, no matter how small.

However, one analytics item that I see a lot of email marketers omit is call tracking. A call tracking platform allows you to create new numbers (auto-directing them to any number you want) and have detailed metrics about your calls. On a simple level, it is nice to have more information about your incoming calls, but more importantly it’s key to see what campaigns are generating what calls to your business.

Now if you only sell online and have no number to reach you, then this is obviously obsolete. But if you take sales orders over the phone, receive phone leads, or have customers call for other information, call tracking is very important. For the calls to your business last month, do you know how many were from site visitors that came to your site through your email initiative?

While call tracking can be helpful for all of your online marketing efforts, let’s look briefly at how it works with your email program.

1.Create Call Tracking Number: The first step would be to create a call tracking number to use for your email initiative. On a basic level, this could be one number that is used for all email activity. To get more granular, you can create different numbers for different campaign categories. Don’t go overboard though unless it makes sense for your list and size of business.

2. Static Number Within the Email: The starting point would then be to have this number in the actual email that goes out (wherever you normally have your toll free or local number). This way anyone that makes a call after receiving the email will be tracked.

3. Dynamic from Click-Through: Taking it one step further; we have the number on your website dynamically change to our email number if someone clicks through from the email. This then allows us to see how many calls came in from the website specifically from people that clicked through from our email. Only those visitors will see this call tracking number, all other site visitors will see the standard number (or whatever other call tracking rules you have in place).

This may sound complicated, but with the right platform it is pretty quick to implement. In a nutshell: a small piece of code is placed on every page of the site where there is a phone number. Another line of tracking code is placed on the end of all links within the email. Finally a quick instruction on the call tracking platform admin and you’re ready to start reviewing metrics!

One more cool thing: with many call tracking platforms (the one I license has this), you can have a quick ‘whisper’ audio clip play right before the receiving end connects with the caller. Something like: “email call” so your sales team answering the phones knows the source.

- Forest Bronzan

Follow me on Twitter

Other posts you might find of interest:

Best Day to Send Email

Introduction to Email Segmentation

Email List Building Mistakes

Posted in B2B, B2C, Dynamic Content, Email Marketing Strategy, Metrics, Retail Email | 1 Comment »

A/B Subject Line Testing

March 13th, 2009

One of the great things about the online space is the availability of metrics and the ability to test different elements. There is no exception with email marketing. Even if your campaign is relatively small, and regardless of if you are a B2B or B2C marketer, testing can help improve the success of your program.

In a previous post I commented on a nice subject line from Blinds.com. A/B Subject line testing is usually the quickest place to start of you are new to email marketing testing, and one of the easiest tests to have in place if you are already running more complex testing programs.

The concept is simple: Test 2 or more different versions of your subject line to see what performs better.

To keep it simple, let’s assume we are using the open rate (number of opened emails/number of delivered emails) as the metric of determining a ‘winner.’ Let’s also assume we are sending to a list of 50,000 subscribers.

Let’s do a sample of 7,500 for each for 2 subject lines, and then roll the winner out to the remaining 35,000 subscribers after 2 days. The diagram below shows this scenario:

In my own testing, I’ve seen everything from near microscopic differences (15.04% vs 15.06%) to significant winners (12% vs. 30%). See how your lists perform under a testing scenario. The larger the list, the greater the impact of even a small improvement. With email marketing, we want to systematically make improvements to all of our key metrics. While one may be more important than the other, they all play an important role in the success of our campaign.

- Forest Bronzan

Follow me on Twitter

Other posts you might find of interest:

Best Day to Send Email

Introduction to Email Segmentation

Email List Building Mistakes

Posted in B2B, B2C, Email Marketing Strategy, Metrics, Personalization, Subject Lines | No Comments »

Benefits of Navigation in your Emails

March 1st, 2009

One element marketers often leave out of their email template is a simple navigation bar. While we focus so much on our promotions, design, and CTAs (calls to action); we forget that our subscribers may not want we exactly what we are sending them in a particular campaign. Ideally you are practicing sophisticated segmentation and personalization to deliver highly targeted content, but why not also give the subscribers options?

Don’t go overboard here, but some core product categories can have several key benefits. Lets examine:

1. The subscriber will have another entry point away from the email and to your website (thus increasing your click-through-rate). For retail companies in particular this is key.

2. You have the opportunity to follow up with extremely relevant landing pages.

3. You can get a gauge of what your subscribers are interested in. If you have a list of 500,000 you are sending to, and 0.0005% are clicking on the ‘dog shampoo link, you can make some deductions.

4. You can segment down further based on click activity. This is a great use of email technology and something I will be discussing in greater detail in a later post. In a nutshell though, your email platform will keep track of who clicks on the ‘basketball shoes’ link, or the ‘skincare’ link. From here you can send a special related communication to that group at a later time, or set up a more advanced sequential sending program where targeted content is automatically based and click activity. There are many exciting options here.

Below is a screen grab of Sephora’s simple header navigation. Clean, basic options, in a traditional location, — oh and they point out that there is free shipping for orders over $50; a nice bonus.

sephora-navigation

- Forest Bronzan

Posted in B2C, Design, Email Marketing Strategy, Landing Pages, Metrics, Promotions, Retail Email, Segmentation | No Comments »

Email Preference Centers – Let the User Decide

February 20th, 2009

One of the last elements I see email marketers focus on is developing a user preference center. Here, we allow the subscriber to give us info about what they want. Big picture; if a subscriber can tell us what they want, when they want it, and how they want it — we are on the road to having a much happier list of recipients. Preference management is important, and as the commercial email world gets more flooded, subscribers have more brands trying to get their attention, and people’s lives get busier – allowing your recipients to change their preferences will become increasingly important.

Aside from making our subscribers happier, having preference data is extremely helpful for marketers. It allows us to provide timely, relevant, and personalized communications to our lists. If we know a subscriber wants emails only 1 time per month, we have our frequency question answered. If we know our subscriber is interested in tips for grooming dogs vs. tips for making home-made dog food; we can provide much more targeted content. You get the point.

When building your preference center, there are of course several options you can give your subscribers. Here are a few ideas:

1. Unsubscribe

2. Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly etc. (depending on what content you are providing)

3. Device: phone/computer

4. Desired Format: html vs. plain text

5. Content: make options available for the different categories of content you offer.

6. Personalization Updates: if you don’t already have the data, you can ask for Name, Birthday, Zip Code, and info that is relevant for your company. A previous post on segmentation provides some other ideas.

The options you provide need to make sense for your business, products, and subscribers. An important note: don’t offer options that you can’t follow through with. For example: if you don’t have the resources to provide a different format for mobile devices, don’t make that option available to your subscriber. Same goes for frequency and other preference options.

- Forest Bronzan

Posted in B2B, B2C, Email Marketing Strategy, Frequency, Personalization, Retail Email | No Comments »

Call Tracking with Email

A/B Subject Line Testing

Benefits of Navigation in your Emails

Email Preference Centers – Let the User Decide

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