Category Archives: Online Marketing

Gap Learns The Power of Social Media

By now everyone knows the power of social media. Several years ago words like Facebook and Twitter meant nothing and now those two social media giants are cornerstones of our lives.

Every little while a really great example comes along that highlights the power of social media that I think is worth mentioning.

In this case, Gap learned just how quick and powerful social media can be.

For over 20 years Gap has had the same logo that we’ve all seen in malls, stores and advertisements literally all over the place. But, they felt it was time for a change and they needed a new logo. (You can read the message from Gap’s North American President here.)

After unveiling the new logo, which Ad Age said looked like “something a child created using a clip-art gallery”, the social networks went wild.

New and Old Gap Logo

Facebook, Twitter, blogs and just about every other social media outlet were, on mass, voicing some pretty big disappointment. And, of course, it didn’t take long for the mockery to begin either. Check out http://craplogo.me/post.php … kind of makes you wonder how much Gap paid their agency?

After less than a week, Gap has gone back to their old logo and said this:

“Ok. We’ve heard loud and clear that you don’t like the new logo…We only want what’s best for the brand and our customers. We are bringing back the blue box tonight.”

Just like that, the customer spoke loud enough and the company responded.

This truly highlights the power of social media and echoes just how important it is for brands to monitor social networks for feedback on their products. (This applies to big and small companies alike!)

Now, there is a chance that this was all a publicity stunt because in all honesty, when was the last time there was this much buzz about Gap? If that was the case, then kudos to Gap on doing that really well, but if that wasn’t the case… then, sheesh… didn’t you show a lot of people the logo before unveiling it?

I wonder if Henry Ford had access to Facebook in 1920 he would have known people really wanted cars in a color other than black? =)

Email Marketing Fail by Schulich School of Business

Lately it seems like I’m only blogging about Email Marketing Fails, but I just find them so amusing!

All day long we talk to our customers explaining them about email marketing best practices and how to conduct effective campaigns. So, when I see other people totally throwing some of the fundamental principles out the window, I can’t help but want to point it out.

This particular email marketing fail is really bad and I’m sure when they noticed it, they were really embarrassed.

Before going any further, I want to say that I am a proud graduate of the Schulich School of Business. I had a great experience and think it is a fantastic institution with an excellent student body and top-notch professors.

That being said, here is the email they recently sent out (click image for larger version):
(Note: I added the big red arrow)

Schulich Career Fairs 2010/2011 Email Fail

Yes, this school that tries to attract top talent from across the globe spelled the word “AGAIN” incorrectly.

Email Marketing Rule #1: Proof read your content!

Amendment to Rule #1: This is especially important if you’re a prestigious business school!

Epic Email Marketing Fail > Live Nation

I’ve been in the email marketing industry for so long and in that time I have seem both big & small companies do some amazing and some disastrous things.

But, it never ceases to amaze me when such an epic email marketing fail is brought to my attention, especially when it’s from a company I know and respect. In this case, the company who made an epic fail and proved they really don’t have a clue what’s going on is Live Nation.

Here is the story…
A Simon & Garfunkel concert was scheduled for May 12, 2010 at the Air Canada Center in Toronto.
On April 29, ticket holders were sent an email from TicketMaster saying the following:

Dear Simon & Garfunkel Fan,
Simon & Garfunkel originally scheduled on May 12th 2010, at Air Canada Centre has been rescheduled to July 19th 2010, due to a vocal strain recently sustained by Art Garfunkel.
Tickets originally purchased for May 12th, 2010 will be honored, no action is required.
Customers who wish a refund may obtain one by one of the following methods:
…etc…

So far everything in the story is fine. We are seeing a good use of email to report a very urgent and time sensitive announcement to a mass amount of people.

And then things take a turn for the worse…
This morning (May 17), Live Nation sent out an email with the subject “Thanks for attending Simon & Garfunkel at Air Canada Centre!”

This is the email content:

Live Nation Email Fail
UMMM… hey Live Nation… you didn’t realize that your concert didn’t happen?

No one thought that maybe under the circumstances (since the show was postponed) that sending out a survey asking for feedback might be a little stupid, embarrassing, silly, <insert adjective here>!

I don’t know who Live Nation uses as their Email Service Provider… and I’m not saying they should be dragged in the streets, but someone somewhere seriously screwed up because stopping an email campaign from sending is usually no more than a few clicks.

So, what’s the overall lesson: If you cancel a concert, don’t send out an email thanking people for attending and asking for feedback.

[Special thanks to my good friend Dean M. for bringing this to my attention!]

Email Strategy Matters Even Where You Least Expect It

So often we are talking about the issue of email marketing strategy when referring to somewhat larger scale email blasts to an organization’s contact list. But, email strategy extends beyond the corporate world and can have an impact in places you least expect.

Just yesterday I saw this scenario unfold and I thought it was worth highlighting…

A very good friend is running an American Idol pool this year (which I’m excited about!). He sent out an email to about 20 of our close friends explaining the format to them (you basically pick a team of 4 who you think will last the longest and then each week you submit who you think will be eliminated), the various deadlines, and a request to forward the email to other people who may be interested in joining.

It is this last objective that I am going to focus on.

It makes sense that he suggested that people forward the message to their friends, families, co-workers, etc. After all, the more people who join the pool, the bigger the prize. This request to forward the email is actually a ‘strong call to action’ because it clearly tells the recipient what to do next.

The problem was that my friend accidentally forgot to put the cost of joining the pool. So, anyone who received the forwarded email (and who hadn’t spoken to him directly in the past to know the cost) would be left wondering how much it costs. Is it $1000, $100, $10, etc? This is fundamentally one of the most information pieces of information someone would need when deciding whether they want to join or not and it was left out. This causes a big communication breakdown and ultimately a roadblock for more people to signup.

Now what happens is anyone who received the forwarded email has to either respond to the person who forwarded it and ask a follow-up question or respond directly to the person running it (who smartly put their email address in the message) to get more information. Since people will often chose the least laboring approach, many may just dismiss the email and therefore not join the pool (which is opposite of the original desired outcome), even though if it included all the information they may have joined.

This really does serve as a great example of how leaving out the smallest detail can really cause one of your primary email objectives to fail.

Once I brought this to his attention, he sent out a follow-up email the next day. The follow-up email had the price in it, but did not include a copy of the original message or a re-cap of what was said previously. This is a whole other issue because now anyone who gets this follow-up email has two messages: One with all the core information and one with the price. Having two messages that they need to pair together on their own will severely hurt results because now you are asking the recipient to do extra work in order to take your desired action.

What he really needed to do was send out a follow-up email addressing the information he left out, but include the original message or re-state all the information. This way the recipient has everything laid out in one organized email that answers all their questions.

Even though this year’s American Idol pool will not be as big because of a serious flaw in the email strategy that will hurt registrations, I’m still excited about it!

Chrysler Dealership Breaks Key Email Marketing Rule

One thing I always tell people is that their email marketing campaign should have a mix of pictures and text. The worst thing you can do is send out an email that is largely just one big picture because these days most email programs (web-based and desktop-based) disable (ie. Turn-off) images by default.

Here is an example of an email that I just received from my car dealership:

columbo_chrysler_email

What do you think about that email?

Needless to say, I can’t see this email achieving any of their objectives since most people probably would not click to download the entire message after opening up and seeing it was blank.

In addition, the likelihood of this email going to junk/spam is higher (it actually went to my junk folder) because there is no legitimate content. Everything is hidden in the image, so when contact-based spam filters skew towards the sides of caution, they will most surely raise a red flag at this email.

When I choose to display images, it ended up displaying a dreadfully long flyer.

I get the feeling they took a print flyer and sent it out, which is hardly the best course of action.

This surely isn’t the reason the car industry is struggling, but maybe with better marketing they’d sell more cars!

Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation is Facing Some Opposition

As email became an integral part of our daily lives, so did the issue of spam. One thing that everyone at Elite Email is always monitoring are the new spam laws being implemented in various countries. The most popular of the laws is the Can-Spam Act, which was signed into law by George W. Bush on December 16, 2003 (Wikipedia). It has been amended since then and remains a key regulator of email marketing activities in the United States and also largely establishes a benchmark for email marketing regulations.

In Canada, Bill C-27 (A.K.A. the “Electronic Commerce Protection Act”) was introduced last spring (by Industry Minister Tony Clement) and has steadily made its way through the legislative process. The Standing Committee on Industry is likely to conduct it’s ‘clause by clause’ review this week.

The proposed law has similar limits to the laws already in place in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

There are, however, a growing number of business groups who have mounted attacks against the proposed law claiming that it will create new barriers to doing business online in Canada.

While the final rules in the law remain to be seen, Canadian’s have been down a similar road before with the “Do Not Call List”. The original proposal of the Do-Not-Call List was so gutted by the time it was passed that the end result is that the majority of telemarketing calls are still perfectly legal, even though there is a huge amount of numbers on the do-not-call list.

Since all of our Elite Email clients are sending permission-based messages adhering to email marketing best practices, this new legislation will likely not affect us. But, as always, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this as the story develops.

Infomercial Gets Remixed and Goes Viral

By now everyone knows that social marketing can be highly effective and lucrative.

One way to really spread awareness is by creating a ‘viral video’.

Creating a viral video is, in the current market, very difficult to do. What makes a video so catchy that it makes people want to forward it to their friends, gets people talking about it, etc, etc. In the past when viral videos were a new sensation this was a bit easier because not everyone was trying to produce the next viral video sensation.

Recently one of my friends showed me a YouTube video that right away I knew was a marketers dream.

DJ Steve Porter had taken the Slap Chop infomercial (which I’m sure everyone has seen) and created a rap re-mix.

The video has over 6 million views.

That is 6,000,000+ new impressions that the marketers at Slap Chop could only have dreamed of.

The cost to get those impressions on television would be very expensive, but since this video went viral it is just more and more publicity without the hefty price tag.

It’s interesting to note that the person who actually made (or re-mixed) the video is not affiliated with the company at all. It’s just some random guy, who had a clever idea, and Slap Chop it reaping the benefits in a big way.

The Effectiveness of Shock Value

I just got back from seeing Brüno with some friends and while I’m definitely not writing a movie review (…although I thought it was very funny…), what really struck me was how much the audience really loved the ‘shock value’ of what they were seeing. It was a movie that totally pushed the envelope and challenged the limits of what could be said or done.

While I’m sure many people will object and protest to the content of the movie (Note: It’s already banned in Ukraine), I think there is definitely merit in seeing how a little shock can go a long way towards capturing people’s attention.

It really has to make you wonder if we live in a day and age where we are so saturated with media messages that in order to stand out from the crowd your message must be so out-of-the-ordinary that it shocks the audience.

With countless videos available on YouTube, it has to make you wonder how some videos get millions of views and become part of current pop culture overnight. From my experiences, it’s the videos that really shock you, the ones that have you stunned, the ones that you know are going to go insanely viral because it is just has that ‘Wow’ factor.

But, how do you get that ‘Wow’ factor? What is the formula? And, how risky is it to go after because an attempt for ‘Wow’ can become a disaster in a moment?

As someone who speaks to marketers and business owners all the time, I’m always encouraging them to think about the ‘Wow’ factor and how to make it work for them.

I don’t think there is a specific formula. I just think it’s something that requires a little outside-the-box thinking… a little brainstorming…and a little creativity.

Making The Same Service Different > Las Vegas Poker Rooms

It’s been a few days since I’ve been back from Vegas and each time I talk to one of my friends who was there with me (many of whom are degenerate gamblers!) they are talking about their favourite poker rooms.

This is very interesting to me because one of the things that I always preach to customers is that they have to distinguish themselves from the competition. It’s so important that you can answer the question “what makes us better”.

The poker room conversation with my friends strikes at the heart of this because poker is the same game no matter where you play it. You’ve got chips, cards, a dealer, some chairs and you’re set. Yet, some of my friends loved certain poker rooms and hated others, even when the game is the exact same.

The specific reasons vary from person to person and place to place that they were commenting on. Some of the poker rooms had nice flat screen TVs, more tables, friendlier dealers, special bad beat or “high hand” bonuses, larger variety of games, better decor, more comfortable chairs, and the list goes on.

So, even though it’s the same game being played in every spot, there is a long list of factors that separate one from the other. Each of the poker rooms knows that these factors make a difference and they work hard to make sure their patrons see the differentiating factors of their offering. And, based on how busy some poker rooms are versus others that are dead quite, it is clear that this makes a difference.

While you may not be operating a Las Vegas poker room, the lesson remains that finding out what makes you different and making that apparent to your customers, can go a long way towards separating you from the rest of the pack.