I’m happy to announce that our marketing team has launched a brand-new website that will (for many reasons) be far superior to what it’s been.
Click here to check it out:
-Scott
Businesses go through a lot of effort and expense to build and maintain customer lists. This is particularly true with regard to lists of customers that have taken the time to confirm, or “Double Opt-In” their email addresses. The problem is that confirmed opt-in email addresses are not portable. In other words, a business owner can’t take her entire list of confirmed opt-in customer email addresses from one email service provider (ESP) to another. For example, a business owner starts building their confirmed opt-in customer list with and ESP like AWeber. This process of compiling lists of loyal customers that specifically request that the business continue to communicate with them through email may take years. These lists can quickly become extremely valuable intellectual property assets of their respective companies. For many companies, particularly those that leverage the benefits of Internet marketing techniques, these lists are the life-blood of the business. Well, time goes on and for whatever reason the business owner wants to switch to another ESP. Here is the problem: the business owner must start building her list all over again with the new ESP! Why? Because to the new ESP, the existing confirmed opt-in customer list has not been confirmed THROUGH THEIR SYSTEM and therefore is not recognized as being confirmed opt-in addresses. In other words, the confirmed opt-in addresses are not portable. It doesn’t matter which ESP: ExactTarget, 1ShoppingCart, Constant Contact, Sender Score, et cetera. There is currently no standard for packaging confirmed opt-in customer email lists and porting them from one ESP to another. So what is the solution? Well, many businesses bite the bullet and re-opt-in their customer lists. There are a number of problems with this approach. 1. It is a negative customer loyalty event in the customer’s lifecycle with the business — customers may feel like the business “lost” or “forgot” about them and needs their information again 2. Customers may not receive the new opt-in request and thus not respond 3. Confuses many customers (didn’t I already say I wanted to receive communications from your company?) 4. Gives the customer a unexpected decision opportunity to reevaluate the company and perhaps not re-confirm their address Our solution differs from above in that we are willing to act in the place of a business owner, using their login information, and export the confirmed opt-in list directly to the Infusion CRM. This maintains the integrity of the confirmed opt-in status of the list and benefits the business owner by not forcing them to re-double opt-in their already double opted-in list when moving to Infusion CRM. This is a tremendous benefit for those who have invested in and rely on their confirmed customer email lists. We need a 3rd party authorization form, signed by the party wanting to export their confirmed list. We login as the customer, verify that their list is indeed confirmed opt-in and we do all the transferring to ensure the list integrity is maintained. Put another way, we do all the transfer work so there is no way for a customer to inappropriately claim a list is already confirmed opt-in when it is it not. The ultimate solution would be for there to be some sort of 3rd party trust and certification authority, like Habeas or Sender Score, or some new company (does anyone else besides me see a business plan here?) to develop some sort of industry standard of confirmed opt-in certification that would allow these company assets to be portable from one ESP to another. This may be a pipe-dream to call for a confirmed opt-in certification standard as the email deliverability industry is very fragmented. Heck, look at the DKIM adoption lifecycle. Anyway, there is unquestionably a need to have confirmed opt-in addresses portable from one ESP to another. Infusion solves the problem for our customers, but the bigger solution is for 3rd party certification of confirmed opt-in lists to allow the lists to be portable. I hate buying cars. Anything that depreciates THAT fast is criminal. I’m a lease guy - no down payment, minimize the monthly expense, and get a new car every 3 years. The lease on my current car is up this fall. My expectation was I’d get a letter from Infiniti telling me locations of dealers where I can drop my car when the lease is up & that’s about it. To my surprise, about a month ago, I received a direct mail piece from Infiniti. It was clearly marked as piece #1 of 4. I couldn’t believe it! Someone deep within Infiniti’s marketing department gets it! Well, almost gets it (no immediate call to action, no scarcity, no emotional selling, etc., etc.). I have since received piece #2 - another direct mail piece.I’m glad to see that even the often ‘out-of-touch’ big boys are attempting drip marketing (some call it multi-step or sequential marketing). Some do it better than others. The best incorporate different types of media; direct mail, e-mail, fax, phone calls, gifts, etc. They blend it all together into a sequence of anywhere from 2 to 200+ steps (yes, I have actually seen a drip campaign with over 200 pieces/steps). Here are a few thoughts on why multi-media, drip marketing works:
***Takeaway*** Multi-step, multi-media drip marketing can turn you business into an inbound harvesting machine because your audience is better informed about your product or service, your message is on their mind, and they buy from you when they are ready.
I recently attended three different events conducted by three very different personalities/experts:
As unique as each of these gentlemen are in their expertise, content, skills, abilities, and delivery, I found it remarkable that all three discuss something in common: The pains and challenges marketers, sales professionals, and entreprenuers face. Guess what?! The challenges we face are all the same! So, what are the common challenges that all three talk about?:
Interesting. We’ve got three undisputed experts telling us our problems are the same regardless of whether we’re a marketer, sales professional, or an entreprenuer. So, how different is a marketer from a sales professional from an entreprenuer? Is it the approach we take? Personality? Skill set? While the rest of the world wastes time to discuss, argue, and figure it out (and trust me, most businesses spend a LOT of time arguing between sales & marketing), I’d rather work on the solutions to the core problems these guys talk about. As long as the $ is rolling in because I’ve nailed these challenges, you can call me whatever you want… marketer, sales pro, or entrepreneur! We just rolled out a significant release. If you missed the announcement, newsletter, and list of enhancements that were released, here they are (Infusion Software customers can learn more about them by visiting the Knowledge Base): Usability Enhancements
Automation Enhancements
Order Management Enhancements
Marketing Management Enhancements
Affiliate Module Enhancements
Help Desk Enhancements
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