Responsys Interact 2012

Last year, I wrote a blog post recapping my attendance of the Responsys Interact 2011 user conference.  This year, I'm lucky enough to find myself working for Responsys as a Customer Success Manager.  As such, I attended the event again this year - in San Francisco.

Acquisition vs. Relationships
Of the many great themes presented this year - one stood out violently to me: Are you an "Acquisition First" or "Relationship First" company? As marketers, this will be the question of our time I think. Companies that get this right will find themselves left standing.  These will be companies that reinvent customer experience and loyalty.

Acquisition First Companies:

• Obsessed with the first purchase (ever say or hear "...yeah, but we just need revenue.")
• You market the price/product (race to the bottom)
• You have to sell your product (this is a hungry beast)
• Use digital to drive traffic ("how many clicks did we get?")

Relationship First Companies:

• Obsessed with third/fourth purchase (building loyalty)
• You market the experience (how do your customers feel about their purchase?)
• Your customers sell it for you (your best sales reps don't actually work for you)
• Use digital to tie everything together (create one experience, digital and offline - together)

Tough questions that likely require transformational efforts to move from acquisition- to relationship-first. 

charity: water (donate)
Last year, Blake Mycoskie from TOMS Shoes showed up and gave an amazingly inspirational speech about his charity and his one-for-one model.  This year, Scott Harrison from charity: water matched Blake's enthusiasm for doing good. His charity works to provide clean water to communities in Africa.

After an extremely emotional presentation, I was inspired to donate my upcoming 31st birthday to charity: water. Please consider donating to this great cause and sharing this charity with your friends and family.



Earth, Wind, and Fire
Just like last year, this year's event entertainment was amazing. Six-time Grammy Award winning legends Earth, Wind, and Fire performed an amazing show open only to conference attendees. Here's a video I shot front row for the song Shining Star.

You can get a full recap on the event on the Responsys New School Marketing blog.

The Problem with Automated Content & Aggregation

I don't know exactly what technology tastelocal.com uses to collect and distribute all of the daily deals they have in my area - but I know the emails that I get from them are a terrible example of automating content - and caring about customers/users.

Below is an actual email I received from them with a deal for Taco Bell...but wait - the picture they've pulled into this email appears to be some gourmet crab-cake sandwich and sweet potato fries.

Definitely not representative of the offering.

Since this deal is for Taco Bell - no one is fooled by this blatant misrepresentation.  But, just say this had been for a smaller, independent, local restaurant - then its possible that I would have been misled to believe that this image was an actual representation of the offer.

I cant understand why any business would find obvious errors like this to be acceptable. Automating content may save time, but causes errors like to this tear down good-will.

Emails from TripAdvisor - Personal, Mobile, and Nude?

If you have ever researched travel online - I'm sure you've come across hotel reviews on TripAdvisor.  You may not know that they are owned by online travel giant (and my former employer) Expedia. Although Expedia recently released plans to spin off the Trip Advisor brand (read more about that here).

If you have actually signed up for TripAdvisor, then you've probably also received some of their emails...here are a few of my favorites:

One of the first emails I got from Trip Advisor was a "personal" message from Steve Kaufer - the founder of Trip Advisor. It's a great message - an invitation to review a hotel, restaurant, or attraction on the site.  Of course this builds content for their site, but it also develops the community. Putting Steve's face right on the email is an awesome idea too.  I heard Steve speak at the annual Expedia partner conference in 2009.  He's unique in the fact that he's the founder and CEO. He was clearly passionate about travel and tech and of all the Expedia business CEO's - he had a sense of ownership and connection to the business that came across clearly in his speech.

This email came to me after I searched a trip to Laguna Beach on the website. I used to live in Orange County, so I frequently check out trips back to the area.  This email advertises their mobile app and pulls in some browse data (location) from their website - which adds context to the message - I like context. 

As far as subject lines go, this one is a killer. I bet this email over-indexed greatly on open rates based on its subject line: "More nude beaches uncovered..." The email has an interesting stat about Europeans and their propensity to go 'au natural' while on holiday. 

Did you receive any of these emails? Thoughts?

Email from Norton - Clean and Informative

I used to use Norton for my PC Security.  I use someone else now, mainly because of price - but I had used them for years.

They sent me an email last week that I really like, 11 months after my subscription with them expired.  Very clearly, it stated that they "missed" me and they were "worried" about my security.  The email had a $20 offer and outlined their suite of products very clearly.  Additionally, there was a little matrix under the products that helped me decide which product offered what features. And, there was a small poll that asked if I was no long interested in their products and why - a simple click of an image and I was done.

I think this email is great example of a company being human (they missed and were worried about me). Also, the poll asking me if I was no longer interested and why (deepening their data and understanding of their lists). On top of all that it's just a clean, well designed email.


My only question: Why wait 11 months? Maybe because its time for my subscription with someone else to expire. Well played, Norton!

Gary Vaynerchuk talks email at SXSW Interactive

I'm fresh off my trip to SXSW.  It was an amazing time and I'll be posting more on it very soon. I did have one video that I wanted to post right away - Gary Vaynerchuk discussing email.  If you've scrolled through my blog, you know I talk about email - and I have an almost unending passion to get email right.  With that said, I present Gary talking about email during his 2011 SXSW Keynote - be forewarned of his language.

Responsys Interact 2011

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Responsys Interact 2011 in San Francisco. Responsys is a leading provider of on-demand marketing software and professional services that enable companies to engage in relationship marketing across the interactive channels that consumers are embracing today—email, mobile, social and the web (1).  In my role at Thomson Reuters, I currently use Responsys and I was asked to speak on some keyword and email opt-in strategies at the event. 


My session was geared toward  businesses with a considered purchase cycle...for example: if you sell automobiles, it's unlikely that the email you send today will result in a sale tomorrow. So, the goal is to capture permission and have a conversation.  I had the fortune of presenting with Mike Hotz, a strategic consultant with Responsys. Mike is the author of this recent article on ClickZ: 3 Tactics for Effective B2B E-mail Segmentation. 

The first day, Responsys offered training for users of their platform. Anytime you use some tool or workflow solution, its been my experience, that you use it in a narrow band of its capability. Periodic training such as this, can help you realize much of the functionality that you're probably not leveraging. Think about Microsoft Excel...how much functionality is there that is under-utilized by, say, 90% of all users? 

After the training, the conference got underway, and the schedule was jam-packed and included keynotes from leading figures in the world of online marketing.

- William Morris from Gatorade's Mission Control spoke about some of the things Pepsi and Gatorade are doing to connect with customers.
- Blake Mycoskie founder of TOM'S shoes spoke about his inspirational journey of founding TOM'S after a trip to South America. Responsys followed the speech up by dispatching a small army of people dressed in TOM's shirts to distribute gift cards good for $25 to the audience, the entire audience. After that, Cyndi Lauper came on stage and signed a pair of TOM'S that are available now on eBay - and Responsys added a sizable donation to Cyndi's True Colors foundation. Cyndi later gave an amazing private concert to all attendees.
- Alexis Ohanian co-founder of Reddit and now of Hipmunk (a favorite of mine) fame, talked about who owns 'the conversation' - it's not companies or marketers.
- Chad White, from Responsys, presented with representatives from Facebook and Orbitz about the future of the email marketing environment. Facebook had a lot to say on the matter. Chad writes the Retail Email Blog.
- Greg Adams of Burton Snowboards introduced the audience to their foundation: Chill.  It does a lot of good work helping underprivileged kids get out on the slopes.  Responsys followed that up by donating to that cause as well.
- Shar VanBoskirk and Julie Ask presented from Forrester Research. You know them...they write all those white papers that you download.

And of course there was the breakout sessions, 28 to be exact, covering 4 main topics: direct purchase, considered purchase, new school marketing strategies, and tactics for users of their platform. Sessions I attended were led by clients such as the NBA, Verizon, Harley Davidson, Dollar Thrifty, FKQ, Adobe, Team Detroit, Build.com, and experts at Responsys.  I also had the opportunity to speak with Lucy Handley of MarketingWeek.

The entire event concluded with an awesome wine tasting at Press Club, a really nice wine bar in the Union Square area of San Francisco. I got the feeling that Responsys really surprised everyone to the upside with their execution of the event.  It was flawless - I have to say.  On a slight side note, they do an amazing job with branding as a company.  And, when they go public, the ticker symbol will be MKTG (Yahoo! Finance).

I found there to be two main themes from this event: One - engage with people, absolutely crush their expectations, and be generous (you can never give away more than you will receive). Two - Responsys is doing a good job promoting the New School of Marketing.  It basically challenges all marketers to think about where they are in the lifecycle of an ever-changing industry.  Read more about the New School of Marketing on their website.


Footnotes
Responsys Interact 2011 website
Read the press release from the event
Photos from this event on the Responsys Facebook page

(1) - Responsys investor relations

Email from Hotwire - Nice and Simple!

I recently booked a room through Hotwire, it was my first time booking through them and I found it to be a great experience.  While it did make me nervous, I did rather enjoy the surprise of not learning which hotel I just booked until after paying for it...travel roulette we'll call it. Good times.

Now that I'm signed up I've received a few emails from them and I have to say I find them easy to read and informative. This email that I just got picks just a few cities and displays price and star rating information.

Having previously worked for Expedia (Hotwire's parent company) I'm aware of of the key drivers of demand in the lodging and hospitality industry.  This email displays hotels in both major and tertiary markets, has a good range of star ratings, and none of the prices are over $88.

In the left column, a search box is displayed with a pre-populated destination (my home market of Minneapolis) and the 5-Star Deal of the Week: Las Vegas for $85/night.

I do feel that the 5-Star deal gets left out a little, moving it up to the top of all the listings and calling it out there might make it stand out a little more, perhaps.  Overall, a simple, easy to read, and informative email from Hotwire.

Gary Vaynerchuk's email auto reply is awesome

Gary Vaynerchuk...who started WineLibraryTV and author or Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion has a very cool, yet very simple, auto-reply strategy when you email him.

On Twitter, Gary put out the call for people to send the receipts of his new book the The Thank You Economy to him via email.  It seems no one knows what he's planning on doing with all those email confirmations, but @HeatherPierucki asked if he was going to use them for wallpaper maybe.  


I was going to order the book anyway...but this added some urgency - and, just what is he going to do with those confirmations?! I had to find out. I ordered the book and sent over my receipt.

When I forwarded my confirmation to his address, I immediately an auto reply with a link to a landing page with a short video from Gary. While the email itself didn't have much to say...it was a great confirmation that my email made it to its destination and it did an amazing job setting the expectation of a reply.


It also contains links to his new book and his About Me page on his website.

Once you click through to the landing page and watch the video (which is also very good), you can see the appropriate channel for many requests that Gary receives. There is email contact information for his various activities such as: speaking, his wine business, interviews, and consulting.  Also, links to his Facebook, Twitter, and About Me page again.


This is an awesome example of taking something simple like an auto-reply to an inbox, and elevating it to the next level.  Do you have an auto-reply email, perhaps to an inbox that you couldn't monitor - even if you tried? I bet you could easily implement this auto-reply/landing page/video strategy. Simple and effective.


Oh, and what's he doing with those receipts? I'll let you know as soon as I find out!

Why subject lines matter

Email subject lines...in conjunction with the preheader and the 'friendly from' sections, are the key driver in helping us decide which emails we open and which we don't.

Juice, Bagels, and Subject Lines: a short case study.

Do you like bagels?  If so, I hope you have a Bruegger's close to you...they have the best bagels in my opinion.  I recently joined their email list and have received a few coupons since doing so - its the perfect match:  I have an inbox AND I like bagels.  So, the other day I received an email and I happened to see it come in on my mobile.  The from line? "Bruegger's" The subject line? "We proudly offer Nantucket Nectars!"

Okay, got it.  Bruegger's has Nantucket Nectars...I know this because I happen to love both things - but it was a nice reminder.  Didn't even have to open the email, right?

Well, today when I finally jump on my laptop and check my mail I came across that Bruegger's email that I didn't open before - this time I opened it to check out the message.  A coupon for Nantucket Nectars was hidden in there this whole time!  The subject line, which I used to base my decision making on when not opening the email had betrayed me.

A better subject line might have been: "50 cents off any Nantucket Nectars at Bruegger's" - simple, to the point, and I know what to look for in the email.

With so many emails to compete with, the subject line must be descriptive and build some anticipation of what the email has in store for the reader - in this case a cool discount on Nantucket Nectars at my favorite bagel place: Bruegger's.

Great email series from Alice.com gets me to buy

If you haven't heard of Alice.com - you're missing out.  I first heard about them back in July or August of 2010 at a networking event here in Minneapolis.  Sounded interesting enough - they allow you to buy household items (that you're buying currently at Target or Wal-Mart, probably)  from them online and they ship the items directly to your door - free of charge.  I checked it out - remember telling a few people to check it out and that was about it.  I was impressed - but I didn't make a purchase. That all changed a few days ago...and it started with one email.

Email #1

It was the first email I had received from Alice.com in a while...and the message resonated with me for some reason.  Actually - that reason was it showed a picture of someone pushing a shopping cart through a snowy and windblown parking lot.  A sight I was becoming rather familiar with since moving to the Twin Cities from Texas.

Oh, and the subject line..."Avoid the Winter Weather and Save with Alice" - the weather has been rather, lets say, chilly lately.  I think my car reported a bone chilling -18 degrees a few weeks ago, so even if this just saves me one trip I would be thankful.

There is a picture of a young woman opening a three-color printed box with the Alice.com logo on one side and the slogan ("everyone needs an alice") on the other.  I wondered if the box really looked like that when it showed up.  The rest of the email was beautiful and simply designed...I knew exactly where to look and what I was looking at.  

I clicked through the email and browsed the website (its nice and clean as well).  I took note of some prices and which products appeared to be on sale.  But, I still had yet to make a purchase.

Email #2

About six days later I got another email from Alice.com...this time they were talking savings...and limited time offer.  20% savings for about 4 days.  "Okay...let me take another look" I thought - and I glanced over and noticed the empty paper towel tube on the holder.  

So - I know I have to make a trip for paper towels (the first item promoted in the previous email) so I figure - lets give this a shot.  I ordered a few items...six - which was the minimum to have a delivery ship out.  They automatically applied the discount to my account - no promo code to enter - and they emailed the confirmation, and let me know they would be sending me a free gift as well and to be on the look out for it in the box.  Awesome.

I went from logging in to their website a few times to making a purchase based on a few emails...the first one drawing me back in - and the second one making me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Well played Alice.com - well played indeed.

The Delivery

Delayed at bit due to the massive winter storm (obviously no ones fault) my box arrived - and indeed it was the same three-color printed box shown in the email.  How about that?  I imagine the cost of those boxes isn't cheap - but I appreciate the details.  Oh, and the free gift?  A bottle of Propel Zero water, tucked neatly into a nice Alice gift bag.  

Footnotes

It's clear Alice.com really cares about customer experience and branding.  They had a great email campaign that engaged me at the right time, a super-easy to use website, and a great experience all the way through to product delivery. I'm a fan.

Learn More

Visit Alice.com

Read the Alice.com Blog

Learn more about Alice on CrunchBase

News: Alice.com gets social (InternetRetailer)