Effective Email Case Study – TubeMogul
I hope that last week’s case study was helpful in looking at the email campaign efforts of a well known, well established company. The next email I want to highlight came from an online service that isn’t nearly as well known as Expedia.
The Company: TubeMogul.com: This free online service allows users to upload a video one time and have it distributed amongst many different video websites.
The User History: I don’t have a lot of experience with this website. I heard mention of it in a podcast a few weeks ago and decided to give it a try. I went to the website and created an account at the time I heard about it, but I’d sort of but it out of my mind and didn’t use it.
The E-Mail:
The Effectiveness: Their team has clearly done their research (or flagged my account properly) to know that I only logged in once. It’s been long enough since I signed up that this email serves as a great reminder to go back and check out this service. It’s not overbearing, it’s just a pleasant reminder that the service is available.
The Result: I will definitely use the TubeMogul service the next time I need to upload a video. I’ve been politely tapped in the email to remind me. And it’s free, so why wouldn’t I use it?
Do you feel differently about the effectiveness of this email? If so please, by all means fight me on this!
Read MoreEffective Email Case Study – Expedia
Checking my email last night I noticed some ingenious, personalized email marketing campaigns that I think more businesses should consider (including my own). I felt the need to share these as case studies. There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll split them up. Hopefully I can continue to do these case studies to give props to what works in marketing and why.
The Company: Expedia.com: I’ve always had great service and luck with Expedia
, so they’re my go-to travel site when referencing flight prices, hotels, etc.
The User History: a few days ago I booked a cruise vacation with some friends out of Port Canaveral, 60 minutes or so outside of Orlando. The trip isn’t for almost a full year, so I wanted to just get an idea of flight prices from Oakland to Orlando. I headed over to Expedia to just check out the price ranges and get a feel for how much I’ll have to put aside for a flight. Since the trip is next February, I don’t plan on actually making this purchase until sometime this summer or next fall.
The Subject Line: Find your flight to Orlando backed by our Best Price Guarantee.
The E-Mail:
The Effectiveness: It’s directing a sale that they’re already running to me, a person who has already shown that they are interested in this particular destination. The email contains just enough text to show that it’s paid attention to my user habits and is offering it’s help without trying to make a super hard sale. The links are targeted and there’s not much in the email that’s off topic (see the Seattle to San Francisco rates in the yellow box – unrelated but I don’t blame them for throwing it out there). I do acknowledge that this may be a total coincidence that I happened to be in the market for a flight to Orlando and this routine email may just be perfectly timed, but at least it shows that they do know their audience.
The Result: I honestly think that I may be a bit more likely to make this purchase sooner than I had anticipated because of this email. I am a little bummed that the sale advertised doestn’t lower the price any more than I’d already found on the website (which was probably a sale price in the first place). I will definitely keep an eye out in regards to their Best Price Guarantee, a service that I never realized they offered until receiving the email.
So in conclusion, email marketing can be effective, even when sending to other marketers. It’s always a great learning experience to pay attention to the emails you get and think to yourself, “What can I learn from this?” and apply what you’ve learned to your own job. It’ll improve your performance and you’ll be better off.
Read MoreDealing with Email Solicitations
More and more lately I’ve been receiving unsolicited business emails. Not spam, just emails from representatives of various companies offering their services to our company. I’m getting a bit more adept to answering these emails when we’re not interested. But it’s still an awkward situation.
So how do you address these things? Is it best to get straight to the point and tell these people politely that you’re not interested? Or should you fill the email with pleasantries and tell them you’ll get back to them if you’re interested? It’s a tricky situation.
My approach lately has been to get straight to the point. Thank them for taking the time to reach out to you, but politely let them know that you’re not in the market for their product or service. Of course if I am interested, I’ll ask for more information. Every time I send a response though I’m always conscious of what the person receiving the email will think. I don’t want them to think that I’m blowing them off, but I also don’t want to lead them on if we’re just not interested in the product or service.
So how do you approach this situation? I’m really curious to hear opinions. Talk back to me!
Read MoreAnalytics Glossary: Parameters
Parameters:
- These are located in the URL immediately after a question mark and followed by an equal sign and a return value, known as name=value. Parameters indicate to a database what page a user is viewing. For example, www.mysite.com/product/widget.aspx?=1234. Here, widget is the product and 1234 is the product identifier.
This comes up a lot when using search functions embedded in websites. Be sure if you’re going to share the link with a customer or through a bulk email campaign to copy everything after the question mark. Sometimes if you just paste a link into an email or document and rely on the auto hyper link feature to add the link, it won’t add anything after the question mark. Be sure to use the menus of the program to insert the correct URL into the hyper link.
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Glossary Definition From Website Magazine, February 2008.
Another Suitcase in Another Hall
It’s the end of a 2 year streak for me here running our Mailing Services at PsPrint. I’m passing it on to an able-bodied lieutenant and the Customer Service department… probably where it should have been the whole time. At this point the majority of the day to day stuff has been passed on and it is a bit strange to come in and not have to do these things.
But what will I do with my days? More of the same, really, just with more time to focus. We’re still transitioning our current affiliate program into a reseller program and have begun our true affiliate program over at Commission Junction. I’ll have more time to properly manage both programs and follow up with affiliates and resellers alike.
There will also be more time to focus on our email marketing campaigns, trade shows, advertising opportunities, blogging, social network marketing, reputation management, new media, and our green printing initiative.
So the end of an era has come and 2008 will be a fresh year for me here. I’m excited, and yet, anxious. Bring it on!
Read MoreMany Hats
Things I’m In Charge Of Today
the Print Green initiative
Social Media Marketing
Mailing Services
Affiliate Program
Reseller Program (TBA)
E-Mail Marketing
Tracking IT fixes
Tracking website version changes
Tracking Opt-Outs for emails and snail mails
Answering Marketing Email
Things I Assist With
Advertising
Trade Shows
Donations
Partnerships
Does this seem like too much or just enough?
Read More
