Awesome infographic from the folks at Uberflip – www.uberflip.com
Webman
Tag: Marketing
Not Responsive
There’s a disconnect between how consumers are reading commercial emails and how marketers are conducting email marketing campaigns. On one hand, there’s the report earlier this week that says 41 percent of all commercial email is opened on mobile devices — a number that’s expected to surpass PC/desktop opens by the end of the year.
On the other hand, there’s the new 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report from Marketing Sherpa that says more than half of email marketers aren’t designing their emails with mobile devices in mind.
Almost 1,100 marketers took the survey and, of that group, 58 percent said they’re not creating emails to render differently on mobile devices.
Here’s another sign of the disconnect between email marketing and consumer activity: Only 21 percent of the marketers surveyed say they integrate the mobile channel with their email campaign.
Time to wake up Mr. Retailer. Work with your teams now and Get Responsive. You are losing sales to your competitors that are responsive.
This information sourced from recent Marketing Sherpa survey. www.marketingsherpa.com
Webman
You Made It – Now What?
Did you party like it was 1999 last night? Well if you did you have now realized that you did wake up this morning and you do have a screaming headache. The world is still standing, but you might need to lay down after that doomsday party you attended. Throwing caution to the wind; participating in the wheel of beverages. Shots? Never a good idea, but why not since the Mayan calendar essentially gave you the freedom to make different decisions. Were you burning down the house? Hmmm, that reminds me of a song.
Well, we made it. We are all still here. Now what?
If you put off any decisions on what your e-mail strategy will be in 2013, time to get on it. Grab that mug of piping hot coffee and let’s get going.
- Mobile, relevant content, and multi-channel touch points become the mainstays of effective email programs in 2012. 2013 will be the year that email marketers will need to optimize and grow by addressing their subscribers’ changing habits
- Effective marketers will focus on customer centricity, relevant content, and multi-channel, data-driven lifecycle programs
OK, got it. But how?
- Triggered email programs are critical – Now go multi-channel
- Add SMS, mobile application push notification, or frequency from display ads to your email
- Determine where multi-channel touch points can be most valuable. SMS is great at driving a sense of urgency through a last-minute reminder, while targeted display excels at reinforcing value while customers are deciding
- Go multi-channel – Yes I am repeating myself. As we know in advertising, frequency is important
In 2013, the majority of e-mail will be opened on a smartphone. Thus, “mobile-friendly” scalable templates will no longer be enough. You will need to rebuild your templates to account for responsive design. Responsive email design is the only truly mobile-first strategy. Get on it now.
Why responsive design? Econsultancy reports that 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would close or delete an email not optimized for mobile. Therefore, if you don’t get mobile, your emails will be relegated to the digital circular file.
Thanks for your support and readership in 2012. Have a great holiday season and happy new year. And just remember
Webman
E-Mail – Master of the Omni-Channel Domain
Bring out your dead. In Monty Python‘s classic movie The Holy Grail, it was time to bring out your dead:
Well, for a while industry experts were writing off e-mail as a dead medium. Not so fast there mate. The reality is quite a bit different.
- There are 3.3 billion email accounts (social media – 2.7 billion accounts)
- Email is the most dominant way of sharing information with more than 100 trillion messages sent a year
- According to the Direct Marketing Association, firms made an average of $40 for every dollar spent on email marketing in 2011. This is sure to go up given the impressive results so far this holiday season
E-Mail – Definitely not dead. Alive and well.
Webman
The New E-Mail Champion
Where are people opening their e-mails? This is a critical piece of information for all e-mail marketers today. E-mail access has changed radically over the last couple of years with the rapid emergence of mobile and of course new devices such as the iPad. Well, we have a new number 1 in where people access e-mail. And the winner is:
In a recent study completed by Litmus, www.litmus.com, a leading e-mail testing and marketing analytics company located in Cambridge, MA, the iPhone and the iPad now represent 28% of all opened e-mails. The results of this study were sourced from over 1 billion e-mail opens from Litmus’ global e-mail analytics solution. Take a look:
Even more amazing is that mobile is now the number 1 platform for opening e-mails:
And yes, Apple dominates mobile:
So for all companies using e-mail to drive business and customer satisfaction, what is your responsive design strategy to capitalize on this rapidly changing trend? Your competitors are surely looking at this opportunity with a keen eye.
Thanks to the folks at Litmus for the awesome analysis and infographics.
Webman
Growth – What is your Metric?
Most of us are focused on professional and personal success. We set goals, we measure them, we track progress, we modify as required, we drop those that are no longer important and we add new ones based on changing times, conditions and experiences. What are your metrics for growth? How do you define growth and success? What are you focused on?
If you have worked in the corporate world, your professional success in measured in the impact you make on the business, the ratings that you receive in your performance reviews, the raises that come with it, the occasional promotion, the relocation for the next opportunity, considering career moves to other companies to accelerate your growth curve, focusing on what is necessary to get three levels above where you are. If you work for very competitive companies, it is an up or out mentality, and the under performers get left behind. So you need to set different goals to make sure that you are competitive – go back to school, take on-line courses, find mentors, get more political, make sure you are standing out from the crowd, being different.
All of these areas are crucial for professional growth in a highly competitive company. Do these things well, kick ass and take names and you will benefit from increases in your income that provides you with the buying powers that you strive for. You want income growth, you want to demonstrate your success to your peers, your family, your friends. For those in the corporate world, do you remember the first time you went to your bosses home? Impressive huh! I want to live in a place like this. Or how about when you hopped in their car for a team dinner and you found yourself sitting in that BMW you have been admiring but not yet in position to get, Hmmmmm. This is sweet, I need to get one of those.
So many of us really focus on growing our income as a primary measurement of growth and success. We get that fine home, great car, make some money in the markets, take that fine vacation, send your kids to the best schools, join the country club, you know all of the status symbols that we hold in such high regard. Hey, when you look good you feel good.
Of course there is a considerable downside to this measurement of growth. What happens if you don’t get that raise or it is less than anticipated? What happens if you are impacted by a layoff? What happens if your boss is a real jerk and you flip him or her off by mistake or just when you are bitching about them to a colleague, you turn around and they are standing being you? Unfortunate, yes. Just one event, just one disturbance in the force can impact your success. So if you do not have a straight path to more income have you failed? Are you still growing? Are you any good?
But why do we primarily focus on one measure, financial, as a sign of growth? If I get a 10 percent raise next year but eat less healthy food, spend less time with close and extended community, or do more self-serving work, did I really grow? Just because the number is easy to measure, is that all that matters?
Here’s a few other ways to grow besides financial:
– Grow in giving/reduce taking
– Grow in caring for others
– Grow in ‘lifestyle habits’
– Grow in knowledge
– Grow in family/community
– Grow in balance/wisdom
– Grow in joy
What if, at the end of every year, we took stock of ALL of these measures, along with financial? Would that change behavior?
All of these ideas are tough to measure, but you know it when you have it and when you don’t. Conversely, focusing solely on financial growth is actually destructive in the long-run. In the macro, we build a transactional (rather than trust) mindset into the culture. In the micro, as our financial capabilities grow, so do our waistlines/stress levels, our debt averages, and our disconnection from our fellow man.
So what to do? Here we have a reason to practice focusing on us. Over time, it may become easier to not react to such desires and really begin to act in a way that brings true growth. If that starts to happen in many people at once, you have the start of a movement away from constant, insatiable, unbalanced financial growth. And then! Who knows what will emerge? Start to think about your metrics of kindness, wisdom, health, fun and balance in addition to your financial growth metric. Your view of life will change and you will be so much happier and better off without that stress 🙂 You can win everyday in so many other ways.
This blog was encouraged by the Daily Good. www.dailygood.org – Check it out.
Webman
The Social Party
We hear a lot about social media these days. It has now become fully woven into the fabric of our society. People use it to post something they like, breaking news, share an opinion, post pictures, lifelines and of course video. Businesses use it to promote their products, to improve their customer service, to “crowdsource” product development, to run sweepstakes and to create a direct line of communication to their customers. Politicians use it to raise money, tell you about why they are the best candidate, why you should vote for them or identify the location of their next rally or speaking engagement. Job seekers use it to network, identify who might be connected to their target companies and to manage their professional brand. When you watch a traditional newscast on TV, they now have segments about what Mary from New Hampshire tweeted or what was trending on Facebook. Think about how pervasive this really has become.
This social stuff has really become a part of our every day life. Hey, not that you were not social creatures before, but what has changed is the shear scale of your social networks. Friends from the neighborhood, school, business, your gym, your kids sports teams, neighbors, folks that you don’t know at all. Whenever you engage in social media you are broadcasting. You are your own television network, radio station, website, billboard and e-mail. You could name your channel WARMY (For my man Armand), WPUP (For the Pup), WMAY (For the Maysek’s); you get it.
Here are some interesting fun facts from Hubspot (www.hubspot.com) showing some interesting changes in our behavior – Folks are spending 7 hours and 46 minutes on average per month on Facebook.
Anyone remember My Space?
Looks like men can tweet and watch TV! (They are probably eating as well – Can you say multi-tasking?)
We are very social creatures and we are becoming more social. Where does anyone find the time?
Have a great day.
Webman
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