For our money, PETCO has always done a good job with their online marketing, specifically in email. And that’s part of the reason why it was intriguing to see their most recent email campaign where John Lazarchic, Vice President of Ecommerce, for the pets products eretailer, penned a short letter truly in the form of a personal email. Read more…
Discounts abound at eretail sites this holiday season. The New York Times dubbed the price slashing “holiday price wars” in an article today. The article’s desperate tone underlines what many of us already know: the holiday shopping season is going to be rough.
The BlackBerry Bold has been unveiled, and many folks compared it at launch to the iPhone. For what it’s worth, I think that’s a good thing for BlackBerry marketers.
Because, no matter the brand, smartphones are not going anywhere.
There will be more brands entering this particular technological fray; some might actually outdo both the iPhone and the BlackBerry Bold. And they will drive the wireless market further into the future.
Before you know it, the smartphone will be akin to the television set in the late 1970s. Absolutely everyone will have one, and the picture will likely be in color (if not high-definition).
Of course, they will be more affordable than ever, too.
As you might have read in an earlier blog, I have been looking for a marketer who has tested mobile-dedicated links and landing pages in their emails. Well, I have found one.
Stay tuned for a how-to article in the coming weeks. You’ll learn that marketing to smartphones now is a no-brainer – if you want to get ahead of the competition.
I have been signed up for Barack Obama and John McCain’s email messages for well over a year. And my fellow Americans (sorry, I couldn’t resist, ‘Mac’ fans), I was let down by what I did NOT see on Wednesday or Thursday.
Neither candidate had sent out an email to their subscriber list since the election results were in thanking them for their support. Obama’s Internet strategy has been pretty brilliant, so this glaring blind spot in ‘customer care’ was nearly shocking from his camp.
I first recognized this yesterday, a day after Election Tuesday. At that time, I was willing to cut campaign managers David Axelrod and Rick Davis some slack. A Tuesday night or Wednesday morning email would have been best. But they and their teams had to be unbelievably tired and distracted. The last thing they were probably thinking about was another email send.
But I thought: They really should be sending a ‘Thank You’ message on Thursday…any point after that would be kind of an embarrassment. I mean, both campaigns wisely used email to gather support. Whether it was donations, volunteering, soliciting help with phone banks, etc., each candidate was acquiring the resources of hard-working people via those messages.
By not sending their lists ‘Thank Yous’ in a timely fashion, they sent an altogether different kind of message: “We don’t need you anymore.”
That’s unfortunate for both the Democratic and Republican brands. While the bad marketing on both parties’ watch will not matter in 2012, why take the risk of turning off your best supporters? It makes zero sense.
Especially when you consider that both camps constantly sent emails this year. Several a week.
One more. That’s all they had left to do.
There was an interesting article in a recent print edition of The Wall Street Journal about how there may be tough times ahead for the more than 300 advertising networks on the Web. The online edition of TWSJ is not a freebie, so I will summarize. Read more…
I got a call this week from a charitable organization. Their cause sounded very, very worthy.
But this is what happened. I asked them: If I made a donation, would they email me a receipt? I made it clear that that would be the only way I would contribute. I have had the experience in the past, where if you donate, the organization will email you a receipt. Read more…
For the last few months, MarketingExperiments has been testing which times of the morning work best for their webinar announcements. The results — in terms of number of signups — have been surprising. Read more…
Retail email item: On August 27, Bed Bath & Beyond sent out a campaign that included a dedicated link for people who opened the message on their mobile phones. As part of my job of keeping an eye on as much of the email universe as possible, I signed up for a few BB&B segments – but not every single one of them – while registering at the site a number of months ago.
Last year, numerous email marketers used Halloween to spike their open and clickthrough rates and drive sales. But the most important thing that industry observers saw in their inboxes was that this mini-season isn’t just for seasonal marketers with tight product niches. Read more…
A major eretail player has been using a ‘wow’ tactic. In their order confirmation emails, the brand has offered customers the chance to call a toll-free number that same day if they want to add more products to their order. Read more…
