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October 13, 2004
Seth Godin on Email
A highlight of the Exact
Target conference was the keynote, given by Seth Godin. I first heard Seth speak
in 1999, just after he published 'Permission Marketing,' a must read if you're
in e-mail marketing. I had him sign my copy of the book back then, and I still
have it.
I've seen him speak a few times since then, but I loved the message behind his talk this time: that you have to strive to be remarkable in order to be truly successful. Remarkable in your marketing, remarkable in your product design and remarkable in your customer service.
I must admit, when I saw 'photo op with Seth Godin' on the conference agenda, I thought it was a bit cheesy. But I was second in line when the time came and I'm glad I got to speak to him again, briefly. If you haven't picked up his newest titles, I highly recommend them; they are quick, entertaining, uplifting and full of good advice on online marketing and business in general.
Web Analytics+Email
I'm intrigued by the new generation of Web Analytics+Email Solutions that are
coming online. The two I've seen in action are SubscriberMail+ClickTracks and
ExactTarget+WebTrends.
I'd dealt with web analytics reports before -- and I always found them terribly useful and incredibly painful to read. The site overviews are good, but the navigation reports (showing you how people move around your site) are the ones I find most useful.
The web analytics package I'm most familiar with used excel spreadsheets and had full URLs with corresponding information. It wasn't very user friendly, and you had to have a printout of each web page next to you as you reviewed the report to make full use of it (unless you knew your URLS code and the pages committed to memory -- quite a daunting task on anything but the simplest website).
But not anymore. Both ClickTracks and WebTrends have user-friendly interfaces which show the data on top of a picture of your site. This isn't anything new, I know, but adding in the e-mail component by partnering with an e-mail service provider (ESP) is something I hadn't seen before.
It allows you to see how visitors coming from your e-mail navigate the site, and how their travels compare to visitors from other sources (search engines, specific page recommenders, etc.). Again, all right on top of that picture of your site, so you see what % of visitors click on each link of each page. Ground breaking? Well, no. But very, very useful.
John Marshall from ClickTracks, who presented at the PointNClick Conference in Chicago and who I was lucky enough to have dinner with, said they currently have an agreement in place with SubscriberMail and are expecting to announce partnerships with some other ESPs in the near future. At the ExactTarget Users Conference I spoke at in Indianapolis, they unveiled their solution with partner WebTrends.
I remember when open rates became technically feasible to track -- everyone wanted to have that new metric. This is going to be much the same. So if your ESP isn't providing this service, start asking for it. If they are, I encourage you to take advantage of it. And if you aren't using an ESP, this is one more reason to outsource the send. In e-mail, more metrics are never a bad thing. I can't wait to start using these services with my clients!
I looked for more information on these solutions on the websites mentioned, but found nothing. I guess it's all so new that it's still flying a bit under the radar. Never the less, watch for this -- it's the new thing in e-mail and I predict it's going to be critical to future e-mail success if your goal is to drive traffic back to your website.
Direct Marketing vs. Email
My colleague, award-winning copywriter Pat Friesen and I, addressed a
sold-out crowd last month in Kansas City. Folks were there to hear Pat, the
Direct Mail Maven, and me, the Email Marketing Guru, talk about the
similarities and differences between Email and Direct Mail.
Our goal was to increase the comfort level of the Direct Marketers in the group by letting them know what aspects of their direct marketing knowledge transfer to e-mail and which don't.
It was very well-received and we're discussing putting together a longer workshop (2 to 3 hours) on the topic to present in the spring. My thanks to the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association and Kristen Moreland for inviting Pat and me to speak. If you're part of an industry group looking for an engaging and informative presentation, please contact me.
That's it for this issue. As always, I'd love to hear from you -- whether you have a comment on this publisher's note or are looking for outside help to make your e-mail marketing campaigns more effective. Email me!
Best,
Jeanne S. Jennings
Consultant, Marketing and New Product Development
Publisher, The Jennings Report
Columnist, ClickZ.com
mailto:publisher@jenningsreport.com
Phone: 202-333-3245
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