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Recently, I had to call the pharmacy to make sure they had been able to refill a prescription for me. The lady was very nice and said it was ready. In addition, she asked if I would be interested in signing up to receive a text message when my prescriptions were ready in the future. 

Of course!

How convenient to be able to get a text message when my prescriptions are ready for pick-up. CVS also allows you to sign up to receive emails to better manage your prescriptions, receive health information, and receive special offers throughout the store. And that's just one example! They're taking advantage of several different types of marketing channels to make their program more efficient for customers. Many email marketing firms are encouraging their clients to expand into other channels to increase their reach to audiences. 

Only working in one channel right now? Pairing with an email marketing agency, like Delivra, can help you implement other programs in addition to your email campaigns. It might make sense to set up an SMS program (outbound test messages) as a way to communicate with you audience. Or they might be able to help set up a text to subscribe program as well. Text to subscribe refers to having people text you their email address to join your email marketing list. It's a great way to build your email list without much effort on your part. 

For the best email marketing results, incorporate it with other channels, whether that's mobile marketing, social media marketing, blogging, or all of them!

I'm looking forward to receiving my first update from CVS via text and email (now that's I'm signed up for it). Want to learn more about managing your email marketing and incorporating some additional channels? Reach out the email marketing consultants at Delivra today! 

If you are like me, you love your mobile phone. I like having so much information at my fingertips, whether it's my email, my social networks, or just being able to Google anything! As most people move towards mobile phones today, you should definitely start considering mobile when discussing any marketing plans. Text-to-Subscribe is one avenue to consider and I'm going to give you three reasons to love it! 

1. It's Universal. If you have an audience with mobile phones that allow them to text - you are in. Text-to-Subscribe isn't limited; it works with every major US cellular carrier, such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. 

2. It's Easy. For example, all you have to do to sign up for Delivra's emails is text Delivra to 71813. Any company can create a Text-to-Subscribe program equally as simple and just like that, people can start subscribing to your email list with their mobile phones. It's instant gratification! 

3. It's Quick. Joining a mailing list by using text-to-subscribe is quick too. Dealing with long lines during the Holiday season? Invite people to sign up as they are waiting in line at a store. Giving a presentation at a conference? Have people sign up as you're speaking. In a rock band? Have concert-goers sign up during a show! j

Setting up text-to-subscribe is easy and the benefits are huge! It makes it so quick and easy for people to subscribe to your mailing list. So, what are you waiting for? Contact Delivra today to get started! 

My wife and I recently undertook a much-needed and long-awaited kitchen renovation in our home.  Before we started, we asked advice from family members, friends, Google searches, etc.  One interesting (and unfortunately prophetic) piece of advice: The four most expensive words in a renovation are "While we're at it".  

Basically, the thinking goes, that as long as the house is covered in a fine layer of dust, and as long as there are contractors traipsing through it, we might as well get other work done too. The experts, or at least others who have gone through this will tell you of the importance to fight this urge, if you want to stay on budget, on time and hold onto the last vestige of your sanity during a renovation.

It got me thinking about our customers and how they might feel a similar urge to overhaul their Email Marketing program.  What started out as an effort to follow Delivra Best Practices for list hygiene may creep beyond Email Opt-in and over into Mobile Email Sign Up or a review of email design.  

Resist that compulsion to do it all at once!  Yes, all of those things are important but they are most impactful when they are part of a larger, deliberate plan to improve results.  Figure out where you want to take your Email Marketing Program and break it up into manageable tasks.  Our Account Managers are here to help with advice or even a quick sanity check on how to get started.

The American Le Mans Series is a Delivra client. A friend and I recently attended their road race in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. She commented, "No one asked us if we wanted to sign up for their email list. Shouldn't there be some visibility here?" I make a mental note to discuss that at a later date with ALMS. 

This week, we met with Chris McMurry and team, ALMS marketing agency. They laid out two strategies, one which was to increase the fan base. Consequentially, they were planning to pass out 3x5 cards at entrance gates for attendees to sign up for their email list. 

Seizing the moment, we suggested testing our text-2-subscribe tool. It allows someone with a mobile device to sign up for email announcements directly. This email list building tool eliminates websites and manual data entry thereby providing a more convenient and possibly a more accurate way to subscribe. 

ALMS will test both methods (card and text) at their October race in California. I'll get back to you all with the results. 

Successful emailing!

In the United States, approximately 96% of the population has a mobile phone. With so many people owning mobile devices, it is pertinent companies focus some attention on their mobile presence. If you are using an email marketing service provider, are you sure they are supporting not only your email efforts, but also your mobile ones? If they aren't, they should be.

Many people are able to receive and check their emails from their mobile smart phone. Therefore, it is important emails are designed to appear properly on these devices. Is your email marketing service provider assisting you in making sure that your email is ready to go mobile?  Make your email as mobile as your recipients.

Delivra can help you:

• Create a Mobile Strategy
• Integrate your Email and Mobile Efforts
• Design a Mobile Email

Besides creating an email to look and function properly on a mobile device, you want to be able to connect with your audience in other ways that fit their lifestyle - which is becoming more and more mobile, not less. Along with being always attached to a mobile device, people like things to happen quickly. As a company trying to increase their mailing list, it might be wise to look into text-to-subscribe - an efficient, affordable feature allowing people to sign up for your email list immediately. By using text-to-subscribe, people don't have to hear about your email list and then try to remember to sign up later - which likely won't happen. Instead, they can sign up on the spot. BAM!

With times changing, it's important for you to be able to rely on your email marketing service provider to stay focused on the latest trends and then sharing this information to keep your company current.

Want more information on establishing a mobile presence? Contact us today!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Text VOTE to 5710 if you like Casey Abrams.

Idol: This once only msg
confirms your vote for
Casey was received. Vote
as many times as U like
B4 voting closes. See the
results tomorrow only on
FOX!

American Idol's broadcast recently (and my vote) reminded me of the show that launched the marketing SMS/text revolution.

Speaking of mobile, Michael Becker, Managing Director, North America of the mobile marketing association appeared at a recent seminar in Indianapolis.  He revealed that 75% of the mobile phones in the U.S. only have text or voice. This number is projected to grow to only 50% in the next two years.  Obviously the iPhone is not the only mobile device out there.

He further said that if your customer persona is Hispanic males under 30, for instance, text may be the only way to reach this group as they are not television watchers and don't own a computer.  There are other demographic groups that have similar characteristics.

Want to reach people where they are and on the device they have with them during every waking hour?  The answer is compelling.  Mobile fits the bill.

On another note, I was standing in line at a restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI last week.  This facility is but one of many business units of a Delivra client.  My contact and I were discussing a planned tour of Tuscany hosted by their travel business when a lady next to us said, "I love Tuscany!  I didn't know you did that."

Now, this is no small opportunity as a tour for two costs $10,800. I suggested posting a sign in the restaurant with our text-2-subscribe instructions to get patrons of one business to sign up for information from another. Classic cross-merchandising.   And sign-ups are automatic.

Want to see how it works? Text DELIVRA to 71813 (Message & Data Rates Apply.)  Want to try a low risk month-2-month test?  Email me at nberman@delivra.com or call my desk 317.348.3178.

Neil Berman | President & CEO

Today, we unveiled our Text-to-Subscribe feature, allowing marketers to quickly grow their email lists and giving subscribers a new and convenient way to sign up for emails.

The feature enables subscribers to join an email list by texting a keyword to a short code. Subscribers then receive a text message asking for their email address, along with a confirmation email, making the sign-up a double opt-in process.

"We are excited to use Delivra's new Text-to-Subscribe functionality. We see this as a tremendous resource to help anyone grow their list quickly, efficiently and the right way," said Kristen Bassick, Piece of Cake Social Media. "Delivra's responsiveness and ability to get my client up and running quickly have been excellent."

Click here to be directed to the official press release for more information regarding the Text-to-Subscribe feature.

Click here to be directed to the homepage where you can download a mobile marketing whitepaper.

On the Delivra blog, we've written several times to the fact that email marketing is not dead and is very much alive. Of course, there still exists the occasional nay-sayer that argues that email marketing is dying out.

A recent article by Steve McGrath of Big Dot Media offers some great examples to explain why email marketing is not dying out; in fact, he states that it's merely changing.

I love the part, in particular, where he says: "Email marketers have to work smarter not harder to combat the distractions of today's modern social media and spam filled world."

It's so true, although there may be "distractions" pulling the attention away from email marketing. There are ways for email marketing to stay relevant and even work along side some of these "distractions."

Steve highlights a number of various ways to improve your email marketing efforts to ensure that they can combat through those distractions. Listed below are a couple of examples. (Click here for the article.)

Segmentation. I agree that segmentation is a great way to personalize an email. In the article, McGrath points out that "an email should contain some kind of personalization, even if it just says 'Dear <name>' at the top".  Although, yes, that's a starting point, I have to point out that segmentation is much more powerful than that and can be used to add a lot of personalization to your marketing if done correctly - using an email marketing service provider like Delivra can help you learn more about how to use segmentation to send targeted emails to subscribers.

Transactional Emails. These are a great way to increase open rates because they are sent via a timely manner. Say for example that someone signs up for your newsletter - send them an email that thanks them and provides them with what they should expect from signing up.

Here are some further thoughts:

Social Media. I don't see this as a distraction for email marketing if these two tools are set up to work harmoniously with one another.  Social media can be a route to encourage people to sign up for your email marketing campaign.  You can easily place a sign up form on some social media platforms that people can fill out quickly to become a subscriber.

Mobile Marketing. Email marketing can work really well with this new marketing channel.  There are several ways, in fact, that mobile marketing can play a role in your email marketing campaign.  For example, partaking in simple best practices can improve how your emails render on a mobile device.

Clickstream tracking. Clickstream tracking is a great way for email marketers to be proactive - especially for online retailers.  For example, a marketer can see, using purchase tracking, that a client has looked at a particular item on their website, but didn't follow through with a purchase.  The email marketer could send an email encouraging them to buy with an offer.

To read the rest of the article and learn more about why email marketing is not dying, click here.

For more information on how to implement some of these tools and make your email able to combat distractions, contact Delivra today!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

In last week's post, we looked at Marshall McLuhan's statement "the medium is the message" and mulled how it could be applied to our favorite medium, email.

Savvy email marketers take the time to get their message "right." They test different headers and subject lines. They spell check, and proofread, and spell check again. They run SpamAssassin checks and use the results to lower their message's spam score. They perform audits to see how their message will render in different email clients or browsers, or on mobile devices.

But despite all these checks, their campaigns can still fall flat with recipients. Often, this happens because the marketer didn't fully appreciate the unique properties of their medium. Marketers should also examine whether the message of their campaign is consistent with the message of the medium they're using to transmit it. As illustration, I offer a counterexample from my own inbox:

When this message arrived with the subject line "KYMCO USA Introduces New Scooters and All-Terrain Vehicles for 2010‏," my first thought was not, "I simply must know more about these new scooters and ATVs!" Rather, it was, "Who the heck is KYMCO, and why are they spamming me?"

Sure, the email is well-crafted enough: pleasant graphics, lots of links, rendered properly in my client. But the effort of the marketer was overshadowed by the more powerful message of the medium. The power of email is that it is more personal than other forms of communication. And an effect of this power is that recipients take it's usage very personally.

To be clear, I'm a suburbanite with absolutely no use for a scooter or an all-terrain vehicle. So anyone sending a message like this obviously knows nothing about me. Moreover, I never gave permission for KYMCO to contact me via email. Therefore, I was about to hit the "Report Spam" button when I noticed that the sender of the message was familiar:

This email was sent by: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
4790 W 16th St. Indianapolis, IN, 46222-2573, USA

Well, that explains how KYMCO got my address. I'm a huge fan of IndyCar racing, and of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So I had signed up for the IMS newsletter some months ago. I'm guessing they allowed KYMCO to "blast" their subscribers in exchange for a sweet deal on some ATVs or scooters.

If so, both parties made a bad deal. Had I viewed this advertisement in a race program, I might have lingered on it before turning the page. Had KYMCO been given a placement in the regular IMS email newsletter, I might have formed some positive associations between the two brands. But via the highly personal medium of email, I viewed it as an intrusion, an abuse of the permission I gave the Speedway to email me. What made them think it was OK to rent out our relationship to a 3rd party vendor? This was surely not the kind of introduction KYMCO was hoping for.

(As an aside, I hope the Speedway got a good bargain on those scooters, because I'm sure this mailing cost them subscribers. Unsubs and feedback loop complaints are the natural result when people get emails they don't want, and don't understand why they received them.)

No matter how much effort you put into crafting your email, if you misunderstand how the medium itself is perceived, you risk your message being as unwelcome as the telemarketer calling during dinner. Know your medium, or you could be sending the wrong message entirely.

Chris Broshears | Product Development