Searching for the Perfect e-Dialog Holiday Party Outfit

e-Dialog conducts research on the customer purchase path because we recognize that marketers need the ability to communicate with their customers through various connection points in multiple channels.  (Read more in The Online Marketing Suite.)

 

Our research found that the typical purchase path has 3.8 touch points.  This means that a customer saw your print/online/broadcast ad and was introduced to your product or service.  Next, they likely did some research either on your website, a review site, or even by posting a status asking for opinions on their Facebook wall.  This second connection likely influenced whether or not they considered buying from you.  If they wanted to purchase, they probably looked for a deal online or in their email archive.  Finally, they purchased either digitally (yes, this includes e-, m-, or f-Commerce) or in-store.  This totals 4 touches - and there are endless other combinations of introducing, influencing, and closing advertising activities involved.

 

Key findings:

    - There are 3.8 touches in the typical purchase path

    - 36-50% of purchase paths involve more than one touch point

    - If the path includes multiple touches, the average order value is likely to increase by 42%

 

I would like to detail the recent purchase path I traveled while shopping for the e-Dialog holiday party (our Facebook page probably has some pictures!).  My path probably starts in August 2011 when I bought a dress for a wedding at White House | Black Market.  Since then, I’ve been receiving catalogs for the store at my home address.  In a recent catalog I saw a patterned silk top I liked. 

 

Next, I visited the website to see additional pictures of the item.  I decided I definitely liked it and that it would be great for the party.  So, I checked my email archive for any recent deals or promo codes.  Finally, I went to the store to try on the top.  I ended up buying it – along with 3 pairs of jeans that I found there! 

 

To recap, after 1) seeing the catalog, 2) viewing the item online, 3) checking recent WHBM emails, I ended up 4) spending almost $200 in store. 

 

While the company did not offer an e-receipt option, or send an immediate thank you, I did receive an email to rate my purchase 1 week later.  This was definitely a multi-channel win:

 

 

Overall, I was extremely happy with all aspects of the experience.  However, for the purpose of continuous improvement, I do have to point out a multi-channel miss: I went back to the site soon after my store visit to look at the swim collection that was announced via a recent email.  The swim line is not available in local stores so I considered ordering online.  I had trouble logging in to receive my loyalty program discount.  I chatted (online) with a customer service representative who quickly realized that while I had an in-store purchase history, I had a very old online profile – from two addresses ago!  (This is a perfect case for why getting the “big data” together to get the 360 view of your customer is so important!)

 

Marketing Wrap-up: Week of January 9th 2012

 

Thirteen days in to the new year and already we have seen and heard some big developments coming from the marketing, tech and media world. So, to make your life easier, here are some of the top news and blog articles we have found most interesting.

 

Top links of the week:

 

1. An interview with Phil Simon: Business lessons from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google MyCustomer.com

 

2. Ten social media strategies to define a successful 2012 Brian Solis

 

3. Help customers reach content and products more easily: How to streamline site navigation to attract and retain customers Marketing Profs

 

4. Apps to become universal - HTML 5: The future of AT&T’s mobile store Mashable

 

5. Real-life examples of how Google’s ‘Search Plus’ pushes Google+ over relevancy  Search Engine Land

 

6. Mercedes and Facebook? Who predicted that one? PSFK

 

7. Here to stay or marketing fad? 86% of marketers to use 2D barcodes in near future Econsultancy

 

8. The most downloaded social apps - Mobile social media: top apps, deal sites and more Marketing Profs

 

9. YouTube and Twitter are growing while Facebook stays static: Facebook loses share of social network visits as YouTube grows Brand Republic

 

10. Consumers seem to be more likely to click on an ad than on other devices: Mobile drives more search ad clicks ClickZ

 

11. Four timeless email copywriting commandments Marketing Profs

 

12. Mobile payments insight: How PayPal plans to scale its in-store payment system Gigaom

 

Be sure to drop us a comment below and tell us your favorite industry developments of the new year so far.

 

Millie Bartlett, Marketing Coordinator, e-Dialog UK

2012, the year of...

Big events! There will be some significant occurrences in the upcoming year including the Olympics and the Presidential Election. Make sure you have them marked on your promotional calendar now. Having well thought out promotions built around these special events can help you stand out from the crowd.

First up: Leap Year.  February 29 appears on the calendar once every 4 years. Therefore, Leap Year Babies are often thought of as being neglected. If you have enough customers born on 2/29 to justify a special birthday message, it would be nice to treat them to 4x the typical birthday deal. The majority of your database will likely be born on other days of the year, so celebrate them too by offering a special deal on their birthday if they enter or confirm their information on the 29th. Perhaps 29% off?  This will fill in gaps in your data and give customers something to look forward to. 

“Leap” also implies skipping over or avoiding something – like shipping fees! This holiday season we saw an incredible number of Free Shipping deals starting on Black Friday. Many companies extended the deal to the last minute, offering free upgrades to 2-day shipping and free express delivery. Some companies, like L.L. Bean, offer Free Shipping all the time.  If you are still charging shipping fees, Leap Year Day might be a nice day to temporarily suspend them – or charge a nominal flat rate like $2.29.

Another event occurring every four years is the Summer Olympics.  Starting in July, the Olympics will be the focus of much attention. Many athletes have interesting backstories and the news media will be doing a lot of biographies. Take a cue from this this channel and feature in-depth information on designers or employees that are inspirational or have shown great teamwork. J.Crew published a web video last spring on how a particular pair of shoes was made.  It provided a look into the personalities of the team who designed the shoe, picked the materials, and ultimately produced the product. The video made me much more attracted to both the product and the company. According to e-Dialog research, nearly 20% of consumers subscribe to email because they identify with a brand or the lifestyle it promotes. Let them in on more of that lifestyle by putting faces to your brand. 

An obvious tie-in to the Olympics is to feature a game in your email. Games promote interactivity and engagement. The current email from the Choice Hotels loyalty program advertises a simple matching game where you flip over cards and match each of the brand logos. The game times how fast you make the matches and lets you share it on Facebook.  Not only did it engage me, but it also familiarized me with hotels I didn’t know already. This could be replicated using brands or even products from a new line.

http://choicehotelscreative.com/ecrm/11-767/index.html

 

Election 2012.  An event we can expect to hear about for the majority of the year is the Presidential election. The population will be urged again and again to get out and vote.  Therefore, including a poll or survey in your email will be right in line with what customers are seeing and hearing in their day-to-day lives. This is an especially great way to refresh and/or build out the information in your preference center and to gain actionable data from your subscribers. Multiple choice polls can be built directly into your emails with e-Dialog and results are tied to email addresses.

See the example CVS poll below. Based on the answer chosen, you could direct customers to different landing pages. If they are done wrapping, show them gifts for themselves – they earned it! If they haven’t started, bring on the tape, scissors and gift bags.

 

The 12 Days of Christmas.  If you thought you saw a lot of companies doing a daily-deal and counting down the 12 days of Christmas, you were right. And if you think they won’t do it again – especially when the calendar turns 12/12/12 - you would probably be mistaken. Review your favorite daily-deal emails now to see what competitors did and start brainstorming creative takes on this concept. I like the approach L’Occitane took this summer by displaying outlines of the products they would be discounting but still keeping some mystery around them. 

 

I also liked the video Best Buy did right before Christmas where they summarized their deals-of-the-week in a 2 minute video. The video was a nice change from having to click and scroll through all of the deals. Furthermore, it was engaging and entertaining with a little humor sprinkled in.

 

Others.  While Leap Year, the Summer Olympics, the Presidential Election and 12.12.12 are events special to the new year, there will indubitably be others that pop up along the way.  (I’m not even going to address the end-of-the-world stuff predicted for next December). Be flexible and ready for these “events” too with branded templates. At a minimum, create a postcard-like shell with your branding that can be pulled off the shelf to promote something last minute or to match a competitor’s offer.

Wishing you a happy and health 2012!  (And, Happy Birthday leap year babies!  Go Team USA…)

Are there any events I missed?  Please send them my way!

From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, Email Volume Is Up

According to reports, holiday 2011 is off to a strong start, with good retail sales numbers for the days of Black Friday through Cyber Monday. comScore reported shoppers spent more than a billion dollars on Cyber Monday alone, which is an increase of 22% over 2010 and the heaviest online spending day in history. Email marketing is certainly helping drive a good portion of this ecommerce activity, and at e-Dialog, we are seeing the traditional email volume increases associated with the Christmas shopping season. Let's take a look at some numbers.

 

For Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year, the total amount of email sent globally by e-Dialog increased more than 50% over the same days in 2010. We saw a lot of emails promoting a "Why Wait?" message, encouraging consumers to head into stores that were open on Thanksgiving, or offering Black Friday deals online before Friday. Another strong message was free shipping, which was to be expected, since that is something that helps seal the deal for consumers.

 

For Saturday and Sunday, email volumes were also higher than the same dates last year, but "only" by about 30%. Messages were mostly either extending Black Friday deals, or hyping the upcoming Cyber Monday promotions. Cyber Monday itself was again a high-volume mailing day, with e-Dialog clients sending 30% more email than Cyber Monday 2010. It set a record here at e-Dialog for the most emails we've ever sent in a 24-hour span.

 

Overall, looking at the past five days, we've seen email volume surpass 2010 by an average of 30%. It is hard to tell at this point if shoppers will get overwhelmed with all the mail being delivered to their inboxes. Interestingly, we did see an increase in transactional messages, which by definition are more personalized and relevant, so perhaps there won't be any email fatigue happening.

 

What do you think? Are marketers balancing the increase in frequency with an increase in relevance? Can the current email volume be sustained through the end of the year?

First-Hand Proof One Channel Isn't Enough!

I’ve taken up skiing in the last couple of years, and needed to get out of rentals into a set of my own.  Before the season starts I’ve been doing my homework/research which has involved:

l Talking to friends about what they like and what they recommend for me
 

l Researching and reading numerous ski reviews online
 

l Visiting many different vendor websites, both manufacturers (Atomic, Rossignol, etc…) and resellers (rei.com, skis.com, skichalet.com, ebay.com, etc…) alike
 

l Searching YouTube for video ski reviews (many of which are published by skis.com)

l Visiting 2 ski shops in NH and MA to hear firsthand what the “experts” recommend 

After a few weeks I finally pulled the trigger and purchased new skis/bindings from skis.com.  The buying path was a combination of everything above, but there were two things skis.com did that their competition didn’t which made the difference. They re-targeted me via web ads and re-targeted me frequently, and also had video content/reviews of their products available on their website and on YouTube. I very rarely click on any web ads as I’m typically disinterested in what they have to say. In fact, I can’t recall any that I’ve seen recently except for skis.com.  Skis were on my mind, so when casually browsing the web I couldn’t help but look over, click, and do some more research. They custom publish a couple skis I’ve looked at specifically, and a couple others I haven’t viewed to try and gain interest.

 

The video reviews were fantastic as well. Employees were giving their opinions and made mistakes in the videos (what ski was this again?). The videos were shot on mountain with a no-frills approach right after the demo was complete. I trusted them as unbiased opinions.

 

My only issue – I purchased a few weeks ago and they keep re-targeting me with ski promotions which have now become irrelevant. They know I bought skis/bindings, why not re-target boots/poles/clothing/goggles/etc…?

They got me – but there is room for improvement. 

During the entire research/buying process I didn’t sign up for any email newsletters (blasphemy, I know.) The only way they were going to get me was through the web.

When I did finally purchase, I created an account and signed up for email, and they are targeting other products very well in my inbox.

Being primarily an email guy, this is first-hand proof an integrated customer engagement marketing strategy across mediums is necessary to target your customers appropriately.

 

Jared Chase, client services lead, e-Dialog

The Spirit of Giving: Retailers Make It Easy with Gift Guides

Black Friday is coming up fast, and retailers are looking ahead to the holidays, knowing that most shoppers will begin in earnest soon. Personally, I love shopping for friends and family, but for others, figuring out what to get someone is a conundrum. Thankfully, retailers are here to help with handy gift guides!

 

Here's Clarins' "The Beauty of Giving." It offers options for the Jetsetter, the Girl-on-the-Go, and the Hostess. They emphasize the value of the sets, showing that a relatively small investment can still make a big impact. 

 

 

Garnet Hill goes big, featuring 11 gift guides in this email. Obvious choices, like gifts for her, him and the kids, but also interesting ones, like warm & toasty and the gift of a good night's sleep. When you click through, you are taken to an interactive catalog. I think the execution was nice, but where it was lacking for me was in the social sharing. If you clicked on the share to Twitter link, it populated a link. No product detail. Same thing for Facebook.

 

 

 

Philosophy takes a different approach, adding a gift guide footer to their email. They break it down by price, stocking stuffers, holiday exlusives and best sellers. 

 

 

They also provide a gift finder app on their website. Answer three questions, and it comes up with gift ideas for you. It first asks who you are shopping for, either him, her, a friend, a coworker or a hostess, then asks what your price range is, and then asks which holiday scent is the favorite.

 

 

 

Have you seen any great gift guides in your inbox? Share it in the comments!

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate

e-Dialog, @eDialogLiz

PETCO Sees Jump In Revenue with Black Cat Friday Email

In a timely fashion for Halloween and Black Friday, PETCO, a leading specialty retailer of premium pet food, supplies and services created a successful one-day sale campaign called Black Cat Friday.

Compared to PETCO’s standard promotions that are planned six to eight weeks in advance, this fun promotion took their team only three days to brainstorm. With a focus on keeping shopping easy for their customers, the prominent call to action advertised 20% off sitewide and free shipping on $49. There was no use of promo codes making it easy for shoppers to make a purchase. To save time on turnaround they kept the creative simple by using graphics from their website.

Partnering with e-Dialog, they mailed their entire promotional subscriber database. Although they did not see a jump in open rates, they saw a significant jump in revenue: This one-day campaign brought in as much revenue as a three-day sale.

 

Have you been successful brainstorming and executing a campaign in a short timeframe like PETCO? We'd love to hear about it, just leave a comment! 

 

Melissa McClay, marketing communications associate, e-Dialog

First couch commerce, then Black Friday

US shoppers aren’t going to wait until Black Friday this year to search for deals and kick off their holiday shopping. Consumers will begin shopping the day before, on Thanksgiving – from their couches on smartphones and tablets, according to PayPal.

PayPal’s Laura Chambers, senior director of PayPal Mobile, calls it “couch commerce.” She said that it would be the first spike in holiday shopping ahead of Black Friday.  

“We’re predicting that after dinner on Thanksgiving Day will be the first mobile shopping spike of the season. Retailers looking to lure these early holiday shoppers should think about extending offers and deals to these mobile buyers,” said Chambers.

The prediction is based on mobile trends that have surfaced in the last few years as well as a consumer survey conducted recently on behalf of PayPal. Here’s some insight from PayPal’s mobile shopping survey:

-Nearly half, 46 percent said they plan to make holiday purchases with a mobile device this year

 
-More than 60 percent of mobile buyers will make mobile purchases at home

 
-Nearly one-quarter of mobile buyers spent more than $100 on their last mobile purchase

 
-35 percent of mobile purchases are spontaneous

-More than half of mobile buyers currently use PayPal as a mobile payment method
 

By the end of the year, eBay expects mobile sales to exceed $4 billion.

As most stores will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, it will be interesting to see how mobile plays a role in kicking off the holiday shopping season. It’s definitely a great opportunity for retailers to reach out to consumers earlier, and/or to promote mobile.

I’m eager to watch how retailers will promote mobile shopping this year and if the increase in mobile shoppers will be as big as expected.

What are your thoughts on “couch commerce?” I would love to hear your opinion and comments.

 

Melissa McClay, marketing communications specialist, e-Dialog

Break The Mold--Think BEYOND "Above The Fold"

As we rate and review clients’ acquisition score cards, we preach the good word on moving email enrollment to a prominent spot above the fold on the website, but is that really the best that we can do? To be fair, ecommerce teams do put up a solid argument to occupy that same real estate with more customer-centric site search or social plugins. So what now? Does email sign up get demoted to the footer? Or maybe for the adventurous, a test homepage kicker? I think not--and neither does Neiman Marcus.

I’ve been paying close attention to their recent beta site re-launch, Facebook chatter about the release and supporting emails sharing, “we heard you, check out the enhancements, and continue to tell us more.” This retailer is clearly focused on a path of self-improvement and using the “customer voice” to catalyze change (thanks ForeSee or Bizrate)…or just doing a great job at socializing that the NM customer experience is top of mind.

To support these changes,  Neiman Marcus is testing or has launched a very smart email acquisition strategy and it’s directly on the product page--a pop up!

 

Why is this so great?  This is the synergy of 2 very successful acquisition tactics at play.

1) Pop Up

In testing opt-in strategies for a multi-channel retailer, this strategy yielded a 3X increase in email opt-ins during a 30-day test. Also, a pop up doesn’t deter the customer from a specific product page. A customer’s site experience is unaffected if they choose to X out.

2) Product Detail Targeting

Asking for email centimeters away from an exclusive product that a customer is browsing. You get them right where you want them: looking at YOUR content!

 

Now to optimize this, add some flash to the call to action/sprinkle in an offer and voila: Asking a customer to share a crucial piece of information can bridge the gap between browse and buy!

 

If not now-then make an offer later down the line. At that point, if you know the exact product that drove the email sign up, why not serve up a welcome offer with this specific browsed product & toss in free shipping to sweeten the deal!

Moral of the story….as retailers become more aggressive, customers become savvier, and the inbox continues to crowd—what will your brand do to stand out and get the opt in?   

 

Anna McCarthy, Strategy, Client Services, e-Dialog

Leading Consumers Down the Purchase Path

Nothing beats tracking a click to a sale, but what if you could also get a clear picture of what leads consumers down the purchase path – not just from the last click, but tracing all of the touch points that drove the sale?  That’s powerful information you could apply to your marketing programs.  Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?  The good news – a recent Forrester report called The Purchase Path of Online Buyers provides marketers with these valuable insights and more.

 

Forrester collaborated with GSI Commerce (owner of e-Dialog) to obtain the retailer data for this report.  The data comes from 15 GSI Commerce marketing services clients during the Q4 2010 holiday season.  While the data highlights findings from the 2010 holiday season, marketers can apply many of the lessons learned to their online marketing programs throughout the year. Here are some of the top findings:

 

-       The vast majority of consumers purchased online following some web marketing influence

-       Nearly half of all purchases followed multiple exposures to web marketing efforts

-       Search and email continue to “rule” as the most effective tactics driving sales; display and affiliate marketing also made a strong showing

-       Social marketing tactics had close to negligible impact on sales, but should not be ignored as they remain low-risk and inexpensive ways to promote messages

 

The top takeaway from these findings – Attribution modeling.

 

The report shows that most sales result from multiple touch points with consumers.  Attribution modeling tools provide insight into the marketing channels you’re using, so you can track each touch leading to a sale.  You can also identify your most profitable channels, whether it’s email, search, display ads, social – or more likely a mix of all of these tactics.   

 

Take a look at the report.  It’s available free for download at e-Dialog's website here.

 

We’d love to hear your thoughts - so please share what’s on your mind in the comments.

 

FYI: For more on attribution modeling, check out the following blog post: ROI Attribution Takes Multichannel Relevance to the Next Level (http://bit.ly/dTWIcW)

 

Liz Lynch, senior marketing communications associate, e-Dialog