Not so Happy Valentines Day?

Via Mashable: Social Networking Americans' Valentine's Day Plans

Who's in the Blogosphere?

I'm a big fan of visualising data, and I also happen to blog occasionally - so this article from Flowtown based on data from a Technorati survey breaking down who does what in the blogosphere is right up my alley.

Especially when there's pretty pictures to compliment it.

Slightly ironic that I'm blogging about blogging...

Planes or volcanoes?

Information Is Beautiful has a great visualisation of the comparison of CO² emissions from Mt. Unpronounceable compared to how much the European Aviation industry belches out every day.

More details are here

Whose preferences?

As you may have gathered from previous posts, one of my pet peeves is marketers that don't listen to their customers.

For a long time now, the two that I would consider the worst offenders are Ticketek and Grays Online.  Not just because they batch and blast with no segmentation whatsoever, but because both like to highlight their extensive 'preferences management' sections on their websites. They point to these in their emails and all over their sites and seem to be quite proud that they ask you stuff that they both promptly ignore.

The funny thing with this is that both publishers use the term 'My' to denote these sections, trying to lull me into thinking that these preferences are actually mine.  To be fair, when I actually check these sections, those checkboxes are actually highlighting products and events that I have actually chosen. So what's happened to these when they go to communicate with me?

Who knows?

The best examples of ignoring me has been when Grays tried to sell me a boat mooring (I don't have a boat and haven't told them I'm interested in marine auctions) in Queensland (they know I live in NSW), earthmoving equipment (pickup) and food processing machinery.  Yeah, just the stuff I needed!

Ticketek likes to send me offers to see events that they know I'm not interested in.  I don't have kids and don't want to go sit in the audience with a thousand 4 years olds to watch the Wiggles - in Victoria.  Nor do I care about Fashion Weekend (but at least they got the Sydney part right)

But it's not just these two retailers that do this.  David Jones does a good job of ignoring me too. The most humorous was where they emailed me about some new vibrating mascara!

I'll put it down to that CERN particle accelerator. It apparently hasn't destroyed the universe as the tin hat brigade predicted, but it seems to have slipped us into an alternate dimension where preferences don't matter.

It's either that or the effects of the ash cloud from that unpronounceable volcano (why not leave some consonants for the rest of us?)

They're someones preferences, but they're definitely not 'MY'.

Dear F@$*face

A while ago I was working with a client who had an issue with their data capture process.  The problem wasn't exactly with how the data was captured but what type of data they were collecting.

They specifically had a problem with the fact that there was no obscenity filter applied to some of the fields.  They thought it a problem that if someone signed up and called themselves "fuckface" for instance, that they would take issue when they received an email addressed to Dear Fuckface.

This raised a discussion around what's deemed offensive and to whom and whether a name such as this would cause damage to the brand.  Well that's a whole other discussion.

We finally installed an obscenity filter, which we advised wouldn't be the best solution due to false positives.  What if Dick Chaney wanted to sign up to their list?  Sorry Dick, no offers for you, you're name is too, well... dicky.  The only real solution would be to use a combination of the automated filtering and human checking - which is what they settled on.

So the reason for this post is that during this exercise, I decided to sign up to a bunch of newsletters using offensive names.  Only 1 out of 10 retailer newsletters rejected my offensive name.

I'm still getting regular emails from the others without alteration.  I wonder if they know and don't care or if they're oblivious to this?  In any case, it's something worth thinking about next time you look at your subscription process.

Inbox roundup: Empty promises?

It brings a tear to the eye when you get an email like this one from the gang at Cameras Direct.

It's not exactly setting the email marketing world alight for a few reasons.  Firstly, it features a pretty redundant subject line - Camerasdirect - New Canon 550D.

Remember kids, there's no point mentioning your brand in the subject line when it's sitting in the 'from' field just a few pixels away.

BUT this is completely forgiven by the fact that they seem to know this and want to fix it.  Check this out

Just the promise of wanting to know more about me and using this in the future is good enough for me.  So on I go to fill in their preferences form by clicking on the link and I get a nice and simple pre-populated form to complete and send.

Thanks CamerasDirect for taking the time time to put together a simple and effective data enrichment program.  Now here's hoping you'll actually use this next time you speak to me :)

For more great ideas on improving your email marketing, check out The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing

Digital amnesia or just don't care?

So imagine you're in a store and the shop assistant comes up to you and greets you then asks you what you're looking for.  You give them your name and tell them what you're after and hand over a few other bits of info too, like where you live and what you like.

The assistant looks you in the eye and listens to everything you say.  They make a note of everything and tell you that they're sure they can help you find that perfect product.  They tell you that they might not have anything right now but they'll send you a letter or catalogue the second they do.

You've had a conversation.  They've listened and taken notes.  You're happy they've taken the time.

Then you go home and get a letter from them a week or so later with their latest offers.

As you read, you realise that they must have made a mistake.  The letter you got must be someone else's, because not only does it list products that you're not interested in, it also features services and events in completely different geographical locations!

Surely this is a mistake right?  The shop assistant took all your details, they wrote them all down and even asked you to confirm it before they saved it.  They stored the information in a secure location and assured you that nobody else could touch it.

So why did they send you something that has no relevance to you at all?  Why did they bother to waste your time?

Why did they pretend to care?  Why did they lie? :(

You wouldn't put up with it in a bricks & mortar store, so why put up with it online?

Email marketers do this all the time - it's like a virus spreading throughout anyone that runs an e-commerce website.  Get as much info as you can - then ignore it... but get it anyway cause that's what we're supposed to do.

So here's a simple list of rules for anyone that wants to capture customer data.  4 very simple ideas that will get you thinking about how you treat customer information.

Data capture golden rules

1. If you don't plan to use it, don't ask for it.
2. All fields should be mandatory.  If it's not, don't ask for it.
3. Validate client-side - in the fields as you go
4. Verify server-side - by using confirmation pages and emails

Basically, don't pretend you care when you don't.  Nobody likes a liar.

email newsletter basics

It's a bit general but this guide by Smashing Magazine on email newsletter design is pretty comprehensive.  I particularly like the section to do with data collection.  It's definitely one area that most marketers fall over on.

Being Smashing, the main crux of it is very design focussed.  It's a good read regardless.

enjoy