The most used triggered email message stream generally surrounds abandoned shopping carts or website signups where you give your email but do not complete a profile. If you are not using triggered messages around abandoned shopping carts and signups, you should begin to do so (see a good article on how to get going form MarketingSherpa), the emails are effective and can help you address a customer’s (or potential customer) real issue in abandoning their purchase. The problem in my mind is that the very nature of these being triggered messages pulls the real personalization and chance to connect with the consumer out of the equation. These messages generally consist of a generic message indicating that you are receiving the message because you did not complete an action on the site sending you the email. If that action was a purchase, the site might use some dynamic information about what was in your shopping cart and if above a certain dollar threshold trigger a message that offers free shipping if you complete the purchase. Sites often will offer you other ways to get in touch with them including their social media profiles and will wrap with some generic information about how you are a valued customer (maybe even telling you when you first became a customer). For sites that need to scale to large volumes of abandoned carts or signups there is perhaps no other way, however for the businesses where each purchase still matters tremendously and where you are just building your customer base I think you can do better. Continue Reading…

Being a lawyer by degree, articled and called to the bar and having spent my fair share of time in and around law firms I can say that the words digital or social do not really enter the marketing of most law firms. Of course every firm has a web presence and a few have even taken a leading role with iPhone apps, but the foray into real digital or social marketing has been slow if at all. Given that so much of today’s modern digital marketing is about creating content you would think that law firms which do this incredibly well would be all over blogs and sharing links across the social web but there is little activity. So my small piece of advice to law firms is this, start small and start with Facebook for recruiting. You really cannot go wrong and the effort while not large in scale will pay dividends in the form of a connection with top notch law school talent.  Continue Reading…

I participated  in a roundtable discussion with some marketing executives recently and one of the items I suggested was that they start asking customers and prospects for their social networking usernames when gathering information online and in person. The concept is of course not earth shattering but I was surprised at how few companies who want to interact with customers and prospects on social networks do not use the opportunities that they have to ask the simple question of what social networks are being used and how find the customer or prospect on that network.  Continue Reading…

QR Codes are everywhere from business cards to movie posters. I encourage those who sell physical products where you have the opportunity to include a label and where there is any sort of authentic backstory or marketing spin on the product to think about using a QR Code on the product labeling and integrating it with a social media campaign, email marketing and a dedicated website. There are an endless range of products with which you can tell a positive story and make a further connection between consumer and brand post purchase. From organic food to clothing you have an opportunity to engage your customers when they are considering their purchase, but even more post purchase. Check out how the Detroit Red Wings engaged consumers of programs at a home hockey game. Continue Reading…