The very FIRST things I do for a client is implement Net Promoter Score inside their company.

It is an absolute WEALTH of information. Here are just a few ways we leverage NPS:

• To give the company insight into what operational fixes they need to implement to make customers happier
• As an early warning system for potentially HUGE problems before they become PR and/or customer service catastrophes
• Give us an idea of what is really important to the Promoters (thinking about messing with a product or service? don’t even think about it until you’ve scoured the NPS data… it could be a major factor for Promoters doing business with you)
• Test new product ideas, services and/or options.

I’d like to talk more about this last one: Test new product ideas, services and/or options.

If one of my associates is cataloging NPS information and a trend shows the Passives (or Promoters) saying things like, “You know, I’d rate you guys higher but you don’t offer the X-7000 model with the Widginator attached. I love the price but it sure is a hassle to buy them separate and have an employee attach it here. I’d pay extra if it came that way so long as it wasn’t too much extra.”

Interesting feedback, huh?

But, how do you KNOW if it is even worth the effort?

Here’s what I do. Segment 5-10% of your email list and write an email subject line that says, “X-7000 Model with Widginator Attached.” The body of the email would say something like,

Hi Bob,

Jason here from Customer Relations at xyz.com. Recent customer feedback has shown great interest in the X-7000 Model with Widginator attached. However, we don’t know if it’s just something a few of our customers want or there’s a great demand for it.

Can you help me? 

Would you be interested in something like this provided it comes with the same great prices and support as the rest of our products? If it turns out it IS a great need then we’d love to add it to our product line in the near future.

A short email saying yes or no would help me a great deal.

Thanks,
Jason

 The email subject line is written simply describing the product or service. That way the open rate itself will give you a great deal of feedback. And, the body of the email should net you even MORE good data on whether your company should investigate further. If you do then you’ll already have a fair amount of prospects (those who opened the email) to market to.

It’s little techniques like that which make The Net Promoter Score such a goldmine.

Jason

Is there a Fundamental Rule of Email Strategy? I’d like to put one forward for you to consider…

There’s a great little blog post called “Dozens of Practical Tips for Higher Email Marketing ROI.”

A quote in the article jumped out at me and I wanted to echo it in this post:

“The biggest benefit to email is that it’s trackable,” says Jessica Harley, VP, Online Marketing, FTD.com.  “Not only does it work and generate a high ROI, but I can tie it back to a CRM-identified source.   It’s also custom.  I can give the consumer the offer that is right for them.”

The last line is particularly important. I’d like to elaborate by saying that the way to know what offer to send someone only becomes apparent after understanding WHO through the Email Marketing Strategy of Cutting Through the Noise with Relevance. RFM Analysis combined with a CRM system is the best way to do this… not terribly complicated to get up and running and a wealth of information that lets you:

Communicate one-on-one to the customer about what matters to the customer in a way that the customer gets it and understands what is expected of them.

Using this rule you could even begin to build a checklist to match up your email messages with:

Communicate one-on-one to the customer

• Is the email from a real person to a real person?

about what matters to the customer

• Does the email discuss what matters to the customer (not about what matters to the company or the sender)?

in a way that the customer gets it

• Does the email use the language of the customer in communicating?

and understands what is expected of them.

• What are you asking them to do? Is it CLEAR to them the one thing you want them to do? (aka the Call to Action).

Does it surprise you that you should expect something out of a communication? It really shouldn’t. You always expect something, even if it is only an agreement or reinforcement of a message. However, I would suggest NOT sending someone an email UNLESS you believe that what you are asking them to do is something they REALLY want or need to do or know about…

…anything else is just a waste of their time and your credibility.

That fundamental Rule of Email Strategy will lead to more revenue now and in the future.

Jason Bedunah

Seth Godin just posted a short blog post, Redoubling to system failure,  that begins with the following sentence

Every 18 months for the last decade, the world has doubled the data it pushes to you.

Amazing fact, isn’t it? It is especially noteworthy for marketers. What do you do when there are twice as many friend requests, twice as many emails, twice as much data flowing to your prospects as the 18 months before?

There are only a few ways to handle this to get to your prospects:

1. Cut Through the Noise with Relevance

2. Find Influencers/Hubs and Influence Them

3. Leverage Supply Chain Relationships

All three of them require you to really KNOW who your customers are and how to get to them in the first place. We’ll cover the first one in this post and the others in future posts.

Email Marketing Strategy: How to Cut Through The Noise with Relevance

One of the first things we see when we go into help a company with marketing is that they are treating their email list as one blob. Everyone gets the same email… usually one per week or 2-3 per month. The email normally has a coupon for a discount towards some product they’ve decided to push. Or, it’s a general percent-off coupon.

Their emails often resembles a postcard. In fact, you could usually print the email off as a postcard and send it through snail mail to the customer/prospect’s address.

In short, their emails are not relevant. The open rates show it. The clickthrough rates show it and the sales revenue shows it.

Yet, email marketing is one of the easiest things to fix. And, the revenue gains are immediate.

The Best Way to Become More Relevant

For our purposes relevance is simply communicating with the customer about what is important to them in relation to your business relationship. But, don’t think in terms of black and white: Relevant vs. Non-Relevant. It is a gradient scale. Further, there is nothing that is Completely Relevant or you’d have 100% open rates and 100% task completion rates. (And, if this ever did happen you’d know that your email list isn’t big enough).

As you get more and more relevant your email open rates, click through rates and conversion rates go up. As you get less and less relevant they go down.

One way to become more relevant, and the preferred way, is to stop treating your customers like a giant blob. Instead, segment them based on who they are. The easiest way to do this is to take your existing database and do an RFM analysis. Then, take the top 20% who create the most revenue for you and do an append through Claritas (or some other database marketing company) that will give you back all sorts of information like SIC, revenue, location, number of employees and more.

(If you are B2c it works even better because you can get Nielsen PRIZM codes which use lifestyle and consumer behavior to give you back the best segments for your business. You can then match all media to the PRIZM codes for ultra-targeted relevance!)

This will show you WHO is buying and who are natural fits for your company. If you break this down into segments you will plainly see how different segments are interested in different products and product clusters.

With those segments built out you can cut up your email list into segments as well. (BlueSky Factory is a great email service provider that has this capability. I use them almost exclusively now.)

Now, based on this and a little further analysis you will be primed to send out more relevant emails. For example, one of my clients was surprised to discover that Churches were a HUGE segment for them. Based on this we have expanded emails, media buys and even SEO to focus more on the specific product cluster that churches use in their organization. Now, our emails can be much better targeted. By survey, we can find out HOW churches are using the products. This information becomes ‘how tos’ in our future emails to that segment.

This is how you cut through the noise with Relevance.

I’ll be writing future blog posts on RFM Analysis and Email Segmentation. If you haven’t subscribed to the feed please do and you’ll be notified when they are posted.

Jason

Yo,

I’m at Kevin Wilke’s Nitro Seminar and it’s really, really cool. Much different than I expected.  I first thought that it would be a lot of the same stuff I already know and have known for years.

After all, I’ve written copy for some of the “Internet Greats.” I’ve written sales letters that have DOUBLED Dr. Tom Orent’s normal seminar attendance. I wrote a 1 page ad that launched a Martial Arts video company that is STILL going strong 5 years later (past the 80% of businesses failed mark).

(And, so on.)

So, what new, cool, awesome, innovative marketing ideas did we learn?

None.

That’s right. None at all.

Wordpress was mentioned once or twice. I think someone yelled “affiliate” once in answer to a question.

But, this is the genius about the whole thing.

The first day they talked about nothing but…

The Mind!

See, almost everyone in the class already has a shitload of marketing materials. Hard drives crammed full of eBooks, we just HAD to HAVE NOW!

What most of us don’t have is the life we really want… The place to begin is naturally in the mind, what is stopping us, how to look at things differently, how to properly mix mindset, action, accountability and masterminding into a framework that encourages RIGHT KNOWLEDGE, right action and right mindset.

As I reflect, I kinda knew this already. (You probably realize it, too… Is more knowledge going to all the sudden crush the limitations for you?)

The last few months for me have been pretty darn awesome. But, it’s not because of any knew knowledge I’ve learned. It’s come as a result of rearranging the contents of my own mind and multiplying the ‘bigness’ of my action by 10 or 20 times.

The Release Technique has been absolutely critical to crushing the mental barriers holding me back. I recommend it everywhere I go… I’ve brought 3 friends to workshops with me. My mom, dad and sister have each received books about it. For me, it has been the ONLY thing that’s worked.

NLP didn’t.

Hypnosis didn’t.

Affirmations REALLY didn’t.

The ‘Secret’ didn’t.

It helped me dissolve fear. I feel good all day long. I’m more positive.

I think it’s GREAT that they’ve spent the whole first day working on nothing but the Mind and Mental Aspects of this thing. Absolutely brilliant! And, I applaud Kevin because I think most guys would’ve been too scared that people would complain they’re not learning tactics, etc.

Jason