Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Email - the Silent E

A rather unlikely suspect has been making the rounds lately. And while you may have come to know this blog for covering the cutting edge communications and marketing tools, it may seem odd that this suspect is rather old school.

That's right. Good old email is making a comeback. But it shouldn't be a total surprise - it's not like I didn't warn you.

Every indicator I've seen lately indicate that people still use email as a primary method of sharing interesting news, keeping in touch, and notification - not to mention that it's usually the price of entry for belonging to a social network. In short, for the masses, email still rules.

But aside from these observations, you probably would like some more empirical evidence (in addition to the ShareThis study referenced in the above link). Here are some of the recent developments that make me think that "Silent E" isn't going to be quite so silent any more.

Feel the love

Two weeks ago, eMarketer reported that Social Networkers Still Love Email. In fact as you can see, they love it more than non-social network users. It's partially because, according to the study by Merkle, they use the same email address to receive notifications from their social networks and opt-in email marketing campaigns. As Merkle stated in their press release: "we are seeing consistent social use of the email channel, as well as evidence to support the idea that social networking and email use are actually more related than previously thought."

That's good news: social network users' attention is on their inboxes at almost twice the rate of non-connected emailers.

Email Mash-up
But might there be too much of a good thing? Mashable recently let us know that Facebook is giving users the option get get app notifications in email. Facebook clearly wants to move away from an app-to-user arrangement to a direct-mail-to-user arrangement. On the one hand, users will have greater control over what they receive via email; but there's the potential of inbox overload. The good news is that the heavier users are probably well skilled in how to use a feature like Gmail filters.

Exactly what the doctor Co-ordered
The final bit of evidence in this trio of evidence toward email was the news today: CoTweet Acquired by ExactTarget. CoTweet, which describes itself as "how business does Twitter," (full disclosure: Ford Motor Company, my employer, uses CoTweet), has been making great strides in its service that allows companies to scale social media activities. And ExactTarget is a premier leader in email marketing, and their acquisition of CoTweet underscores how email and the social media space are converging. If ExactTarget is able to take its CRM capabilities and combine them with CoTweet's close relationship with the Twitter management, we could potentially see some wide-ranging implications for Twitter and email marketing alike.

And so we don't end on a completely heavy note, I'll leave you with this topical song by Tom Lehrer.

Photo credit: Leo Reynolds

Labels: CRM, email, social networks, trends, Twitter

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:37 AM

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Take a Deep Breath

I've got to hand it to the folks over at Skype. Just when I thought they were digging their own grave by being slow to respond to a crisis, they managed to do the right thing.

If you aren't familiar with Skype, it's VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol), or simply phone service via the computer. Skype is one of the leaders in the field, typically serving about 8 million customers at a time. They were acquired by eBay in late 2005 for $2.6 billion, which raised quite a few eyebrows at the time.

Last week, Skype experienced a catastrophic and near-complete outage from August 16 to August 18. Many people (myself included) who rely on Skype for a main phone line were stranded, podcasters who were planning on using Skype to record a phone interview were out of luck. And worst of all, it was a good 12 hours or so before Skype communicated anything about the outage to its customers and the public. Let's just say there was some hyperventilating going on.

How did they redeem themselves?

Well, once Skype got the hang of giving updates on the Heartbeat Blog, they did it fairly regularly and were quite forthcoming with details. Every two hours or so, they'd fill us in on the process and answer questions. Let's call it regular breathing.

But people still wanted to know what cause the problem. Finally, on August 20, Skype gave some context around What Happened on August 16. Evidently, there was a significant Windows update on Thursday that caused many Skype users to reboot and login to Skype simultaneously, and it was a drain on the servers.

And then, on August 21, Skype was quick to note that they weren't blaming Microsoft: they explicitly stated "We don’t blame anyone but ourselves." Whew! The lawyers must be breathing a sigh of relief. Then they outline what they learned from the incident and that it will not likely happen again. It's good to know they're now trained in CPR.

Finally, "The people at Skype" sent an email (yes, that's exactly how it was signed) stating their abject apologies for the outage and acknowledging (or groveling?) that they are nothing without their customers. But more than simply trying to flatter their customers, Skype made sure they'd be willing to come back:

When the unexpected happens, it's important to remember the people who stuck behind us and whose loyalty humbled us. I want to thank everyone for their support, patience and being part of the Skype community. And for those of you who missed out on using Skype last week - I want to especially thank you as well.

As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we're adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge. And even if you didn't miss out on using Skype last week - you can still have a week free on Skype, on the house!

Not bad, not bad at all. It's heartening to see that they did the right thing. It's just too bad it took them so long to get their act together. I'd expect a little more out of an eBay company, wouldn't you?

Labels: CRM, customer relations, rules

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:41 AM

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Help! I'm Being Held Hostage by Marketing

I've made something of a tradition out of my Friday posts on this blog - my Friday Fun Video series. Long weeks, hard work and frayed nerves by the end of the week usually give rise to a little pawky humor that lends itself to Friday posts. But seeing as I've kept you awash in video posts this past week, I'm going to keep away from it today.

But I can promise you that I've got a real winner of a video to share with you next week.

For this week, I'll give you a thought about push marketing as inspired by the famous National Lampoon cover from January 1973 (full disclosure: I used to work just down the street from the Harvard Lampoon. The twisted humor probably rubbed off on me). How often have you felt like you've been held hostage by advertising or marketing?

More recently, this concept was illustrated by a Dilbert strip. Too many marketers, when they've exhausted the traditional lead generation, direct mail and sales-intensive efforts, seem to espouse this mentality:

And I've seen it happen with marketers who, after they've exhausted their lead generation, direct mail and trade show efforts (and budgets!), want to start a social media campaign in order to pick up the slack. Common phrases include:

"Which social networks should I join / which blogs should I comment on to help sell more product?"
"I'm going to measure ROI on my [blog/podcast/other social media effort] by measuring sales."

Bzzzzt! Sorry, wrong answer. That's not how it works.

With a social media strategy, your goal should be to become part of the conversation, to allow a community to form as a result of the conversation and the tools that you make available. If you really want to become indispensable in your customers' eyes, you need to understand them, you need to listen to them, you need to let them tell you what they need.

Maybe they'll tell you that you'll have to reconfigure your packaging or develop an improvement to your product or face a major overhaul of your website. Is this a pain? Sure. Is it expensive? Sometimes, but not necessarily, and let me tell you why.

The money you spend on these short term fixes, on listening - yes, actually listening to your customers - and taking action will be one of the smartest investments you could ever make. Think I'm overstating it? If your customers perceive your product to be inferior or the information on your website too confusing, they'll leave you for a competitor who can give them a better product and a more enjoyable Web experience.

The money you spend on making improvements - the very improvements that your customers ask for - will be goodwill that you can't buy any other way. They'll know that their opinion mattered and that a company actually listened to them, rather than forcing them to buy more crap. With a conversation that you've fostered or a community that you've nurtured, you'll have a committed and long-term focus group that will be able to tell you what you need to know.

Now, that's not to say that you should take every last recommendation or spend a huge budget on changes. But you should be open to hearing about your customers' points of view. After all, they're the ones that have to live with your products.

Labels: Advertising, CRM, customer relations, Friday Fun, Marketing

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:15 AM

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

Social Media is About Relationships

For all the hype of social networking, there's a common denominator that is seemingly overlooked. While we bloggers/podcasters/digital marketers are technophiles and spend an ever-increasing amount of time online blogging, emailing, surfing, researching, IMing, about the tools and technology, it's sometimes easy to forget that before social networking came...networking.

I had a powerful reminder of that last week which I'd like to share with you.

A couple of months ago, I blogged about my experience at a conference which many readers of my literary blog attended. My conclusion was that the human interaction was very helpful in assessing the effectiveness of my blog and served as an incredibly powerful motivator to keep up the work.

Even at work, while I find emails can spark an idea or conversation, I relish the opportunity to sit down in a conference room and bounce ideas around. It's this kind of process that helps me better understand others and develop strategies that can most effectively address their needs. When done right, it's exhilarating.

I've just caught up on my clogged up feedreader, and I uncovered Kathy Sierra's entry on Creating Passionate Users called Face-to-Face Trumps Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts, Video... which expounds on the very same subject. She writes that "face-to-face still matters," and concludes with my point from January:

The most underrated benefit of the face-to-face effect of conferences is INSPIRATION.

In addition to powerful inspiration and ideation, face-to-face social media meetups serve an equally important role: they solidify relationships. Turning digital relationships into real-life human relationships deepens the connection we feel with each other. Last week, I had the unique opportunity to test this theory. I had four Tweetups - that is, four meetings with people as arranged through Twitter. Three of them were with people I had only corresponded with on this much-hyped technology.

After each get-together (one phone call, two lunches, one after-work drink), I walked away from the conversation energized, inspired and reassured that there are others out there who are thinking about social media. It made me realize that through the hard work I've been doing on my blog, it pays off by being able to be part of a powerful social network and connect with people on a deeper level.

One of our clients is trying hard to build a "relationship marketing engine." They're concerned with customized content for each individual that enters the sales process. While they're largely ignoring social media, to their credit, they're concentrating a lot of effort on tradeshows and user conferences as a way to build those relationships. Where it will really pay off is with the more intimate settings, where the connection can really be made.

We're all overextended, overcommitted and crazy busy these days. But if we remember to put the social back in social media, we'll have a much richer experience.

Labels: blogs, CRM, New Media, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 8:32 AM

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Friday, March 23, 2007

Apple Offers Free Consultations

Talk about customer service! Apple is now offering the chance to get personalized 60-minute consultation sessions in their stores.

Head over to the Apple Store site and select your state and store location. A concierge page will come up and you can fill out your name, email address and mobile phone number so Apple can schedule a time with you.

Consultants will be on hand to help you with all aspects of your Apple life, from creating podcasts to operating your Mac, and fine-tuning your iPod.

If this doesn't help to expand - and solidify - Apple's customer base, I don't know what will.

Labels: Apple, CRM, Marketing

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:17 PM

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Thursday, March 22, 2007

What Is the Face of Your Brand?

After many faithful years of service to Late Night with David Letterman (and prior to that the Late Show with David Letterman), everyman Calvert DeForest (aka Larry "Bud" Melman) passed away this week at the age of 85. He hadn't appeared on the show for 3 years, but he is still closely associated with it.

"What does this have to do with my brand?" I hear you ask.

Everything. And let me tell you why.

When he was picked out of obscurity (DeForest was working at the Social Services office at the time), Letterman's crew had the brilliant idea of putting a normal schlub into situations in which he had no experience. They'd throw cue cards up there for him to read, but the real value for the Late Show's audience was to see how DeForest reacted. They were never disappointed.

But more than the entertainment value that he provided, DeForest represented the Letterman brand: zany, unexpected and unscripted interactions between people, held together with Letterman's own quick wit and acerbic sense of humor. People knew that with Letterman, they were getting someone irreverent - certainly much different from the "apple pie" approach of Johnny Carson.

Now think of your own audience - your customers, prospects and employees. In this digital age, they are part of your marketing team, whether you want to admit it or not. They're engaging in conversations about your brand and representing you to the outside world. Are you aware of it? Are you enlisting their help? Most importantly, have you given them anything to relate to? Who is the face of your brand?

The last point is critical, because today more than ever, relationships count. We're awash in a sea of data, constantly being barraged with messages. Who has time to read another piece of corporate collateral? If an organization can take the time to build personal relationships with its constituents and be authentic in its approach, the trust and connection will be cemented.

One way to go about this is with a CEO blog. This can be a powerful branding tool if used properly. Here's a quick list of the top 10 CEO blogs (or more properly Executive blogs, since these aren't all CEOs). But what should a CEO blog about to make the company seem more human?

Travel and experiences out in the field with real customers (avoiding any confidential information, of course)
A personal passion, whether it's sailing, a charity, or family interests
Examples of how customer service feedback changed a process or product at the company
Calling out successes of individual employees who live the brand; that is, employees who are demonstrating the values of the organization in their personal or professional lives
Please do not blog about new product releases - your audience can get this from your corporate Web site

These are just a handful of ways to get started. I'm open to hearing more, of course!

Labels: blogs, brand, CEO, CRM, New Media, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:16 AM

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Be the Ball, Danny

This is a blog entry that was inspired by a face-to-face meeting between two bloggers who connected via Twitter. What would you call that? A Twittermeet? A Tweetup? Cast your vote in the comment section.

I had lunch with Greg Verdino, that self-deprecatingly proclaimed "z-list marketing blogger with an a-list attitude" (hey Greg, I think you're more a-list material, if that means anything) who was in town for a Forrester conference. I think he's really onto something with a recent entry Are you at war with your customers?

He asks if you're viewing marketing as us vs. them rather than us and them, using marketing-speak or using customers' language. This is a fundamental concept that so many of us marketers miss, because...because - well, frankly, I don't know why. The point is, marketing is all about conversations and building lasting relationships. But how to best put that into practice?

I think it's summed up best by the words of the great philosopher, statesman and orator Cicero:

"If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and speak my words."

It doesn't end with writing copy. You need to think about how your brand fits into various channels. Blogging isn't appropriate for every company. Companies new to the social media space have been known to jump on ideas without thinking things through, utttering "We've got to have a MySpace page!" or "How can we promote our video on YouTube?"

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. It harkens back to transparency. If you're joining an existing social network simply to try to get some quick hits, it's going to backfire on you. They'll smell you from a mile away. Companies that truly get it will:

Understand social media tools
Learn to listen - truly listen - to the marketplace
Participate in a manner that shows they're responsive to the market and willing to join the conversation, not simply "tell and sell."
Lather, rinse, repeat

Labels: CRM, Marketing, New Media, social media, Twitter

Posted by Scott Monty at 5:22 PM

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