Social Streams Are The New Inbox

A surprising amount of activity that I've "traditionally" managed via email and other tools have moved to my social streams - which is a fancy of way of saying my Twitter and Facebook feeds.  For example:

Personal Emails

I can't remember the last time I wrote a lengthy email to any of my close friends/family. (A look at my sent mail from 2001 proves that I used to do a lot of this.) With most of my friends, there usually isn't much "catching up" to do because we all post our activities online.

More and more, interpersonal relationships are becoming a function of tweets, photo comments, and status updates. From a convenience/technology perspective, I admit that I like where this is going. From a cultural and anthropological perspective, this trend may or may not signal the beginning of the end of complex human thought and interaction.

Email Newsletters

I started working in email marketing long before it became an "industry".  Not to give myself too much credit, but I was a very early evangelist of the email newsletter as a sophisticated, technology-driven marketing program.  I suspect that the monthly sales commmission checks may have had something to do with my fervor...

Fast forward to now.  I don't read a single email newsletter.  (Well - maybe a couple that I'm just not remembering because I haven't gotten them in a while.)  My email address is strictly used for personal communications and transactional messaging from my bank, online retailers, etc.  I very very rarely consume information, read newsletters, make purchases, etc. via email.

All of the content I previously consumed through my inbox, I now consume through one-line blurbs on Twitter and - to a much lessor extent - Facebook:

  • The content is more digestible.  I go from "subject line" directly to the content as opposed to subject line to an email message often filled with noise.
  • The content is timlier.  I recall recently unsubscribing from an email newsletter because I had read the entirity of its contents 12 hours previously via links on Twitter.
  • The content is socially-driven.  The social stream makes it very easy to find new sources of interesting content.

RSS Feeds 

My feed reader is slowly dying the same death as my email newsletters.  RSS-to-social apps enable content providers to easily zip their stuff into my stream, so why shouldn't I centralize my content?

The Bigger Question

Or at least the bigger question(s) that I'm trying to answer.  If social streams are the new inbox:

  • What does this mean for marketers? 
  • How will retailers, salespeople, fundraisers, non-profits, etc. manage this channel?
  • What are the "new" analytics that indicate social stream success?
  • How long before these become big problems?
  • What are the new products/technologies that will solve these problems?

Best Subject Line Ever

Email marketers, take heed. This is how to write an attention-grabbing subject line:


Also - note the "minor detail" they revealed in the message body. Geez. I wonder how their numbers would have changed had the sheep been pregnant in the subject line?!

In addition to the effective subject line, the message illustrates terrific demographic segmentation. I presume that National Geographic must know that I'm in the 18-30 male demographic that instinctively reponds to this kind of thing as there is no way in the world they sent this to their list at large. At least I would hope not...

For what it is worth, I opened the message right away. As you might imagine, the photo is absolutely disgusting.

Shenanigans!

The shenanigans I just called was for MarketingSherpa.com's annual marketing blog Reader's Choice Awards.

Chris Baggott of ExactTarget was the winner in the email marketing category.
You might think I'm crazy, but I'm going to ask anyway:

Am I reading the same Chris Baggott blog as everyone else?

ExactTarget is without question a leader in the email marketing space. They have a great product, lots of good customers, and, as founder of the company, Chris is obviously astute. On the other hand, at least for me, the blog isn't quite up to par.

Case in point - check out the posts that are nothing more than press releases. A pretty weak effort in my opinion.

Or check out this particularly stirring post. (Yes - it is a blank post.)

Also, note that (potentially below-the-belt shot coming...) MarketingSherpa uses ExactTarget to send their email newsletters. I suspect in a trade exchange in which MarketingSherpa helps promote ExactTarget. Nothing wrong with this - just awkward given the circumstances.

That said, the blog boasts plenty of good content and I certainly do not contend its consideration as a top email marketing blog.

However, for the sake of comparison, take the MailChimp blog - which wasn't on the ballot. For me, it is much better - even if it is produced by a low-end provider. It is fresh, practical, and the right blend of high level articles, tactical how-to's, and the obligatory marketing fluff.

The ExactTarget blog just isn't all that - and it certainly does not come with a bag of chips. Call my beef with "victory" what you will - cynicism, sour grapes, boredom, whatever. I call it shenanigans.

$.03 on CAN-SPAM

The day after my "don't worry so much about CAN-SPAM unless you're an idiot" post, I find this in an old Google News message.

  • Kodak gets nailed (to the tune of $26K) for not including an opt-out and postal address in a message to 2MM contacts. (How did they miss that one?)

  • ICE.com gets it for sending a message to contacts that had previously opted out of their communications.


Just to re-iterate - maintain good practices, use a reputable email marketing provider, and honor unsubscribe requests and you'll be in the clear re: CAN-SPAM.

$.02 on CAN-SPAM

President Bush signed the CAN-SPAM Act into law December 2003. A year and a half later, there is still much misunderstanding about what the law means and how it applies to Joe Email Marketer.

In my previous life as a Bronto salesperson, it was not uncommon to have a prospect ask if Bronto is CAN-SPAM compliant. The answer is of course "yes" - but with a catch. Your messages have to be "compliant" - the email marketing software provider just makes you compliant. I always responded to prospects with these questions by assuring them that Bronto's account management services, policies and product functionality will take care of them automatically and that, as long as they maintain good practices, CAN-SPAM shouldn't even be on their radar screen.

Last week, I addressed a (rather reactionary and unfounded) email complaint from a customer's contact threatening legal action against our customer under the CAN-SPAM Act. The complaint came from a previous (and recent) customer on the site that had opted-in to receive email marketing communications. No laws broken - just someone that wants to stop receiving emails from this company. Flaming opt-outs such as this only heighten email marketers' sensitivity to CAN-SPAM repercussions, no matter how unlikely they are.

Just this week, I spoke with someone that said they're not interested in getting into commercial email because they're "worried about the CAN-SPAM requirements". I emphasized to them that the "compliance" bar is actually quite low - don't use misleading subject lines, don't misrepresent email headers, provide an opt-out, and include your postal address in the message. (Translation - just don't send spam!)

CAN-SPAM is all about stopping spammers. (By the way, permission-based email marketing communications - meaning communications to customers, prospects, donors, etc. that have requested them - is not spam.) If you're not sending spam, then you have no cause for worry. Maintain good practices, use a reputable email marketing provider, and honor unsubscribe requests and you'll be fine.

I Heart the NBA

I more or less ignore the NBA during the 82 game regular season - that is other than checking box scores for Raymond, Rasheed, Vince and other Tar Heel ballers.

I keep up with non-Tar Heel regular season news via the weekly NBA "Starting 5" email newsletter:

NBA Email


This mesage works for me on 3 levels:

1. The straightforward "add us to your address book" line at the top of the message - a classic tactic to ensure delivery to the inbox, not the junk folder. I added the address to my address book - not necessarily because they asked me to, but moreso because the content is good. (Most folks tend to ignore the latter...)

2. The "Starting Five" = 5 content elements.  Always.  With so many games and so much drama (on and off the court), the good folks at the NBA pare down a week's worth of news into 5 digestible elements.  It is convenient for me and it is a good filter for them - they put forth the best and most important content and ignore the fluff.

Why doesn't everyone do this?  Why do so many email marketers drown their contacts with data?  99% of your contacts are only going to read 2 or 3 elements - so why not pick your best and go with it?

3. The "Forward-to-a-Friend" link is front and center.  So many try to tap into email marketing's viral potential, yet so few do it well.  A well-placed "forward this email" link is a very simple first step that can increase the likelihood that your message gets forwarded to friends.

The real reason I like this message in particular?  Tar Heel Vince Carter in the spotlight - where he belongs.  Perhaps I'll pen a future blog about my 1998 pick-up basketball experience with Vince in Chapel Hill...

What's the point?

I spent some time on the phone with a customer today. We rapped about their email marketing program and how Bronto can help. Here's the (paraphrased) exchange:

Customer - For us, it (email marketing) isn't worth it unless we can track email activities back to sales.

Me - Agreed. How do you guys track the sales impact of your email efforts?

Customer - You know. We really don't.

OK - so that is a bit unfair. This customer is actually quite savvy. However, the comment highlights a common problem - that is not seeing the forest for the trees.

So many folks are quite good at executing on their email program, yet they don't put the right processes in place to track the overall purpose of their effort - sales, donations, education, retention, brand value, whatever.  Or they get so used to making newsletters and looking at the reports that the practice becomes a habit and they lose the initial idea in the shuffle.

Case in point, the Bronto Bulletin has been a bit blah of late. Everything seemed to be OK the way I found it, thus I haven't made any striking changes since I took it over. However, the newsletter began to get especially blah when I first started asking customers if they read it, what they think of it, is it useful, etc.

Most reponses have been tepid at best.

If our email communications are supposed to educate our customers and our customers don't react one way or the other when I ask about it, then what's the point?

So - we changed the look, (someone else's seemingly telepathic idea...), changed the subject line structure and are working to change the timing and improve the overall content. We'll see how it pays off...

Ask yourself before you send your next message - "What's the point?" What a great exercise to make sure you have the right impact measurements in place, to filter weak content, and to challenge you to rethink things every once in a while.