Don’t Overlook Landing Pages for your Email Marketing Campaigns

I just finished writing an article about driving sales with landing pages, which you can find in email marketing university.

But, I wanted to post that topic here as well because so often it is overlooked by marketers.

Just like search engine advertising produces better conversion rates, email marketing has the same reaction.

With so much clutter in the marketplace these days, it’s vital that you guide your customers down a very fine path. Don’t give a link to your homepage, if you know they’re interested in a specific product.

It’s amazing how many email campaigns I see where someone is selling widgets and it’s a featured item in their current newsletter. Below the sales blurb about the widget, there is a learn more link. Clicking that link should definitely absolutely positively be bringing me to a page about widgets. But, instead it brings me to their companies homepage where I am bombarded with a ton of other distractions and messages coming at me.

You know what… maybe this customer was willing to click ‘buy now’ or ‘add to cart’ if it was right their on their screen with some more product info. But, now you’ve dropped them into a maze and said “you work for it if you want to order this!”

Not really a good email marketing or general marketing strategy.

The quickest way to get your customer from point A to point B. That’s what you’ve got to be thinking about!

Who Wants Cold Pizza? Blunder By “Pizza Pizza”

As always, I firmly believe you can learn a lot of good ways to improve your business by studying where other companies seemingly fall dramatically short. It doesn’t matter if that company is in the same industry as you because there is always a more “general lesson” that we can walk away with. By looking at these mistakes it can help you “reframe” or see something you’re doing in a different light and that is a key goal!

Pizza Pizza (http://www.pizzapizza.ca/) is celebrating their 40th anniversary and is Toronto, Ontario’s #1 pizza chain. Their marketing is generally very effective as most people know their ‘phone number jingle’ (…even when drunk, my friends can order pizza…that’s brand loyalty you can’t even measure!!). But, their customer service policies seem a bit questionable.

Here was the scenario that happened:
– We ordered 3 pizzas from Pizza Pizza.
– Each one was completely different and was chosen off their pre-built pizza menu with little to no modifications.

  • The Pizza’s were delivered around 40 minutes later. 
  • Only 2 out of 3 were proper. The other one was a totally different pizza, not even close to what we ordered.At this point it’s important to realize that mistakes do happen. I’m not happy about it, and my friend who had ordered that pizza wasn’t too happy either. But, I can understand they process a lot of orders and while it’s not good, I can see how this could occur.

Of course, the important thing now is that it’s rectified. (Customer Service 101…)

I called Pizza Pizza and selected from their oh-so-friendly-and-always-annoying-like-every-other-auto-attendant that I needed customer service. They kept me on hold for around 10 minutes. [Note to Pizza Pizza: Keeping customers that are potentially angry on hold listening to lame music doesn’t help diffuse the situation, it usually makes it worse!)

When I finally spoke to someone they said their policy is to deliver the correct pizza and let you keep the wrong pizza, but it has to be done right away.

Now, here’s my problem with having to do this right away, which I explained to the customer service rep:

  • Should we let the other two pizza’s get cold while we wait for the other person’s pizza?
  • Should we make this person watch us eat (and savor) our pizza while he waits?(Keep in mind, we’re looking at another 40 minutes of waiting)

After explaining the predicament with the scenario they caused by accident, I said that the only thing we can really do is have my friend eat the wrong pizza. But, because they made a mistake, instead of delivering the pizza right away, they should deliver it the next time I order. After all, in either case they are making a new pizza and sending out someone to deliver it. Who cares if it’s now or later? And, if you force me to do it now, which of the above options should I choose?

I also want to say at this point that since I frequently order pizza, I know that almost all the other restaurants would have had no problem tacking on a free pizza to my next order if they made a mistake.

Pizza Pizza, however, said that is their policy. Final. No ifs, ands, or butts.

What the restaurant chain failed to realize is that the solution they provide to the customer is the dining experience. You can’t recover from that mistake if you get it wrong the first time. (If I eat out and the waiter spills coffee on me…no retakes either!) By not having a responsive and reasonable customer service policy, you extend this negative experience because of the above predicament.

There are a lot of competitors out there and Pizza Pizza’s key to success is loyalty to their brand. I know my friend wouldn’t order from them with so many other options. How many other people are going to start saying the same thing after a negative experience?

I don’t blame the phone rep because I know she really is just following a policy. But, to the folks at Pizza Pizza who created this wonderful policy and the ones who approved it… this is a huge customer service blunder! Seriously, what were you thinking? And, don’t say people would abuse the system because I understand that would be a concern, but don’t put it ahead of good customer service?

Just to end the tale…. Pizza Pizza called 45 minutes later and said they forgot to send the pizza. 40 minutes after that, the pizza got there.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

For the longest time now my friends, co-workers and customers have been asking me why I don’t maintain an active blog.

My answer to them is always the same: There are only 24 hours in a day, I only have two hands and, as such, I can only get so much done.

So, does that fact that I am now starting up a blog mean that I have crafted a time machine or grown extra limbs to combat the aforementioned problems? No, unfortunately that is not what it means. (All my efforts to create the time machine have ended in disaster…might be time to throw in the towel on that venture!)

What it does mean is that I’m going to get back on the horse (…I tried a blog a few years ago…) and see if I can cram more into my jam-packed day.

I honestly feel that I owe it to all our EliteAnswers.com customers to start a blog. I have consulted with for so many of them on various topics such as online marketing, email marketing and social marketing. What I have found is that most business owners (almost regardless of industry) have the same questions and are seeking the same answers.

In this blog I will often highlight customer problems and the proposed solution. I won’t claim to always have the right answer or miracle solution, but when I’m consulting I try to present the absolute best recommendations given all the information I have.  (I’ll also make up fake names to protect people’s privacy.)

I also won’t be censored. I don’t tell people the answer they want to hear, I tell them the raw uncut and direct truth. If you want a ‘yes man’, then go somewhere else. That’s not who I am and that’s not what I provide.

So, here we go…  I guess I should have some dramatic closing line as we embark upon this new blog…

…It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for man…. Damn, taken!
…I have a dream… shucks, that’s  taken too!
…ask not what you can do for my blog, but what my blog can do for… sheesh, taken as well!

I guess we’ll forgo the dramatic closing for the moment, since all the good one-liners seem to be taken already. I’ll simply close with my mantra of: GO BIG OR GO HOME!

Blog by eBusiness and email marketing guru Robert Burko. Discusses current trends, ideas and how you can improve your business.