Garden email review - "Not bad but could do better"

One of our local garden centres sends out monthly emails to customers. For them, email marketing is a great web marketing strategy. It enables them to regularly communicate with customers & prospects who have opted in to receive emails with relevant messages. This would be a fraction of the cost compared with printing & distributing a traditional paper version which I suspect would be unaffordable. However, the email I received this morning left me with mixed views.

What are their objectives?

I don't work for them so I do not know for sure but I suspect their objectives are to grow profitable sales by increasing:-

• the number of valuable customers
• the frequency of shop
• the average spend per visit

Attracting new customers

The email could help attract new customers in a number of ways:-

• firstly, they should be increasing their email list by capturing prospect email addresses and their opt-in permission at every opportunity 
• one way of doing this is by placing a prominent message on the email to encourage people to 'forward this email to a friend'. n.b. I will cover this in more detail in another blog. They do this but it is far from prominent, being just a small link at the bottom of the page near the legal copy. 
• if someone did receive a forwarded email, there is no obvious place (unless I missed it) where they could subscribe to receive subsequent issues

The importance of content 

The garden centre has a lot to talk about. Given the economic pressures more people are likely to 'grow their own' this year and their email sensibly leads with this with simple steps to grow tomatoes, cucumbers & chillies. They include links to their online store for associated products like Miracle Grow but not for the tomato plants which presumably are not suitable for standard home delivery. It is almost as if they are encouraging me to buy fertiliser online rather than visit the store.

A great advantage of best standard email marketing is the ability to tailor messages to different audiences. With advanced email systems (like mine), it is possible to send different content to different audience groups.  e.g.

• people who live close to the store(s), could be sent copy version 1 with an incentive to buy 'Grow Your Own' packs which includes tomato plants, compost, fertiliser. Better still, it could also include additional cross selling opportunity such as a small greenhouse.
• people who live further afield and are unlikely to visit the store could receive a different version which includes more links to their online store

Make it personal

People are much more likely to open the email and read it if it is personalised. However, something has gone wrong with this email and the first name & last names are repeated twice.

There is some good content in the email such as a photo competition & details of talks & events. However, the overall layout is a bit dull & may not encourage people to explore all the content. They appear to be using a system that tracks clicks to some degree. An advanced email system would provide lots of data on how the email performs which provides useful insight to help improve the overall content & layout.

In my email client, their email layout looks odd with different elements not aligning properly and there are some font problems which compromises the appearance. There is a huge gap under the main image at the top. Best practice would include a prominent link at the top of the email to 'click through to an html version' which should render perfectly.

Rendering problems are not uncommon and an email may look fine with one email client but can often look a mess in another. My email system has a preview facility which shows how the email will render in over 40 different email clients. Before you send it, you can see how it looks with images turned on or off in AOL or Outlook or Google etc which is an essential check to minimise email rendering problems.

Overall view

It is terrific to see a medium sized business incorporating smart email marketing as a key part of its overall marketing strategy. Their business has great potential to incorporate compelling content. This is especially relevant in gardening where many people are actively interested in seeking more information. I can immediately think of a dozen different initiatives that would help them achieve the objectives I outlined at the start of this blog.

Right now, it looks as if they are still learning their way and I suspect doing it in-house. The downside of this is that some errors are being made and they are probably only seeing a fraction of the potential value that best practice email marketing would bring.

But at least they are doing email marketing which is more than most & I would rate this email 3.5 out of 10. However, given major players like Tesco are looking at this sector, 3.5 is a good start but 9/10 would be a better target.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you using enough keywords?

Keywords are an essential part of web marketing effectiveness as many initiatives (e.g. search engine optimisation & Pay Per Click advertising) require the consistent use of relevant keywords likely to drive revenue producing traffic.

The keywords that work for browsers / researchers might be different to those used by people who want to buy now. Web searchers are increasingly using more specific searches as part of the research & buying process. Financial service companies can often use more than 3,000 keywords. Online retailers can use anything from 100,000 to 1 million keywords.

In some markets, sophisticated data analysis has demonstrated that key words can vary by day of week and even by time of day.

There are a number of tools available to help identify potential keywords. However, it is important to overlay marketing expertise and insight to fine tune the list to avoid wasting time, resource & money on keywords that will not work for your brand.

As ever, regular analysis of web metrics to identify what's working and what isn't is a key factor for business success.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you an outbound marketer or an inbound marketer?

Traditionally, companies have used 'outbound' marketing to communicate their messages to large numbers of people. Examples include, radio advertising, TV, national press, local press, cinema & outdoor posters. In over 20 years of marketing with Britain's best brands I have done plenty of mass 'outbound' advertising.

But traditional mass 'outbound' advertising is costly & often unaffordable for smaller companies. Increasingly much of this advertising is wasted as a large proportion of the audience (that are paid for) may not be the brands target audience. e.g. By placing an ad in a magazine you pay to reach all readers, even if only a small percentage are the ones you want to reach. The web is not immune to this e.g. banner advertising & emailing a cold audience can also suffer if old thinking is applied to new technology.

Secondly, people are so bombarded with marketing messages that we have all got pretty good at filtering out these 'interruption' based messages: either by using systems (e.g to detect junk email) or just mentally ignoring stuff that is not on our 'personal radar'. When I speak at seminars, I always ask the audience, how many marketing messages they recall seeing that day. They will have been exposed to thousands of messages but typically only a few people can recall two messages.

Looking for a needle in a haystack
When I talk with my B2B clients, I often say traditional 'outbound' marketing is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Potentially, there might be a huge number of companies across the UK that would benefit from their expertise. There could be over 500,000 companies within 80 miles of their location. However, only a small proportion of these prospect companies would be thinking about their solution in any particular week. The chances of reaching the right individual in the right company at the right time with the right message is like finding a needle in a haystack. For many companies the cost of doing this using traditional outbound marketing is prohibitive.

The effectiveness of inbound search
Increasingly, businesses & consumers search online as part of the research process before making a purchase decision. Comscore reported there were 135 bn searches across the world in Feb 09.

Inbound marketing is about making it easy for target prospects to find you and contact you when they are ready to buy. It includes search engine marketing (such as search engine optimisation & Pay Per Click) social media, blogging, podcasts and smart email marketing using autoresponders. e.g. With Pay Per Click advertising you decide which keywords should trigger your ad to appear and then only pay if the click the ad to be taken to your website.

Permission marketing not interruption
Outbound marketing is about interrupting consumers, hoping the messages stick long enough until the recipient is ready to buy. Inbound marketing is about attracting target prospects to visit your website, when they are ready to buy. It is about seeking their permission to follow up with smart marketing that addresses their individual problem.

Your website is critical for success
If new inbound marketing is about attracting target prospects to your website, then it is obvious that the website needs to perform. However, in my view 95% of websites fail to deliver. Just sticking a logo on a brochure wasn't good enough for a web site 13 years ago and it certainly isn't good enough now.

It requires well thought out optimised content, with appropriate offers relevant for the target prospects & designed to convert visitors to leads or customers. It depends on regular analysis of website performance against key metrics or key performance indicators.

Companies that want to succeed, especially in tough times, need to switch their focus from outbound to inbound permission based marketing in order to maximise their marketing ROI.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Facebook UK traffic up 75% but does it deliver better business results?

Digital research agency comscore has just released data showing Facebook's impressive growth in Europe over the last year. In Feb 09, Facebook had a 4.1% share of internet minutes up from 1.1% in Feb 08. Its share of networking minutes increased from 12.32% to 30.4% over the same period.

The largest audience is in the UK with 22.7 million unique visitors up 75% year on year. Across Europe, it is the number one social networking site in all countries except Germany (ranked 4th), Russia (7th) & Portugal (3rd).

Will Facebook help me get better business results?

Understandably, there is a lot of talk (some might say hype) about using Facebook as a web marketing option. Clearly, any medium that has mass reach and takes a 4% share of internet minutes should be taken seriously as a web marketing option.

However, most companies already have thousands of ways of spending marketing budgets and resources. Unless you have the resources of a Coca Cola you have to make choices and focus your money, time & resources on a limited number of activities designed to help you achieve your strategy and business objectives.

So despite its popularity, using Facebook is not guaranteed to work for your business nor that it will deliver a great marketing ROI. Like all web marketing strategies, it is unlikely you will be successful without joined up web marketing.

e.g. Is your target audience likely to engage with your brand on Facebook? Just because I have bought a Dyson and use Facebook does not automatically mean that I want to engage with Dyson on Facebook. 

Is it more likely to be positive engagement or negative engagement that might damage your brand? How does it fit with your brand thought?

So the challenge is how can you use Facebook to help you achieve your business objectives in a way that recognises why people use Facebook (which is not to receive 'traditional interruption marketing messages'). As ever, without a sound strategy there is little chance of success.

What's new?

My first experience of social media (probably before the name was coined) was at the RAC in 96. We were repositioning the brand. Customer research told us we had some great brand values: we were trusted and expert. However, we were also patronising & unapproachable. For many people we were considered once a year for breakdown membership and we wanted to be more relevant for more of the year. When I developed the new RAC website as part of the brand repositioning I included a forum called Your Voice which was designed to encourage user generated content about motoring related issues. i.e. make us much more approachable and demonstrate the year round benefits of RAC membership

All posts were published if:

• it was motoring related
• they did not contain swear words
• they didn't blatantly promote or criticise a 3rd party brand which might involve me appearing in court
  

The first post we received was from an individual who hated the new corporate identity that had just been launched and the fact that we had removed the royal crown from the RAC logo. My heart told me that the forum was all about engaging customers / prospects and encouraging dialogue (positive or negative). My head told me hardly anyone else at the RAC wanted a website and especially a forum which was 'out of our control' & if the 1st thing I published was a negative criticism of the biggest thing the RAC had done in 20 years, I half expected to be fired. 

I published the post and minutes later I received a 2nd post from someone who said they 'loved the new corporate identity. It was colourful and modern and made the RAC less like old fashioned farts'. Of course, I published this in nanoseconds. 

The lesson for me was if you genuinely have a strong brand and offer a great service than don't be afraid to encourage dialogue. With even the best brands, there will be some negative comments. However, these are likely to be significantly outweighed by positive comments. Having both on the website, showed the RAC had confidence and was big enough to display good and bad comments which reinforced our integrity.

The negative comments may also contain helpful clues to areas in the business that require improvement. Read more in my article Are you getting enough customer complaints? 

Had Facebook been around in 96, it would have made life much easier for me and I could think of a number of strategies that would engage the RAC's  target audience on a regular basis (making us more approachable) and encourage user generated content such as maintenance tips, debates on motoring issues e.g. speed cameras, my favourite drives / rides, my favourite cars etc. 

So, Facebook could help your business, as long as it is part of a joined up web marketing strategy that focusses on initiatives most likely to deliver a good marketing ROI. But without the thinking and strategy it's unlikely to deliver great results and will probably be put in 'another marketing fad that didn't work' box.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.