Period Three Blog » 2009

Mar252009

Insider tip to better email subject lines

Posted by Melissa in Email Marketing

Do Not Send Messages on Fridays. Especially Friday afternoons! - This is one tip I usually give our SwiftPress customers regarding send days and times. Why? Well, from my research and experience, the open rate for Friday sends - especially afternoon sends - is usually pretty dismal. However, my theory was debunked this past Friday with a send. All because of a strategic subject line.

This certain customer is a retail store who, like many others, is trying to move their advertising from expensive print mailers to more effective email sends. Their eMessaging has proven to be pretty successful with a good number of opens and clicks per send. The switch has also proven helpful with the retail store for the fact that sales can occur at short notice because of a shipment, etc.

The usual subject line is broad considering they have several things on sale at once. For instance, “Last Chance Winter Sale” or “2-for-1 Sale now in Progress.” This time, they needed a message sent that afternoon which was a Friday. I wasn’t very optimistic sending the message so I decided to try something a little different and a little more precise. I sent with the subject line “20% off Polo Knit Shirts” - instead of just the general, “Polo Sale.”

Finalize. Click. Send. Within 30 minutes of the send we had hit the open percentage rate the previous email had received after a full send (which, in my opinion, is about 3 days) that was sent on a Monday afternoon. After the full send for this particular email, the open rate surpassed the open rate of the majority of their other sends. The click through rate was also pretty high taking into consideration the email had no direct URL link. Pretty impressive, eh?

I know what you’re thinking, maybe people just really wanted some Polo knits that Friday afternoon. But I beg to differ. My moral of the story is this: Precise and strategic subject lines make a great deal of difference in your resulting mass email opens and clicks. Find what you think the customers will be most interested in and push it in your delivery. I’m still not convinced it’s more important than the send day/time; however, I’ll keep testing it.

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Mar242009

Twitter growth being driven by unexpected uses

Posted by Gene in Social Web, Twitter

Twitter has exploded in use the latter part of 2008, I’ve often written about twitter and how simply and beautiful it is. Here’s a great talk from the TED series by Twitter founder Evan Williams.

In the year leading up to this talk, the web tool Twitter exploded in size (up 10x during 2008 alone). Co-founder Evan Williams reveals that many of the ideas driving that growth came from unexpected uses invented by the users themselves.

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Mar232009

Episode 9 - UMS Design Review Podcast

Posted by Gene in Design, Web Development

This week we’re focusing on one site, the excellent nclud.com. We think it’s a really great example of the kind of work more people should be doing.

We reviewed the nclud site last week on gallery.

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Mar172009

Jimmy Fallon - I think he may understand…

Posted by Gene in Business, Branding, Social Web, Twitter

I wasn’t too excited about Jimmy Fallon’s late night helmsmanship when it was announced a few months ago. I thought he was a bad choice to take over Conan’s old show. However the more I learn about the man the more I start to like him and am beginning to dig on his show. See, I think he may just “get it” after all:

I know I talk about Gary Vaynerchuck a lot. The reason I follow him is because he understands social media/networking, he talks about it, he’s done it, he’s worked the trenches to build his empire fan by fan, the hard way. Jimmy Fallon is considerably more well known than Gary Vaynerchuck, by far, but he still works hard to reach each fan and follower. I’m sure he’s gotten a leg up by being on Saturday Night Live, but he had to work to get there too. My point is that he could easily just sit back, work the show and let it go where it takes him. Instead he works the social networks, he’s frigging huge on twitter: @jimmyfallon where he’s one of the most powerful twitterers ever. It’s really him twittering too, not some marketing agency, he messages plenty of people back, legend has it he’ll even respond to your emails when he can.

I don’t think the above clip is a photo-op, I think it’s really his personality to do stuff like this. If he keeps this up, he’ll build a fan base that will last him forever across any medium he lands in.

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Mar132009

Wufoo loves their customers

Posted by Gene in Business, Branding

I recently received this hand written thank you note from Alex of the Wufoo.com team, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever. I wonder how long it takes them to do these? This is a wonderful way to keep me interested and signed up for their service, just out of pure loyalty now. They’ve made me an evangelist for their service with just this one little note. There’s a great lesson here in marketing if you’re paying attention.

Oh, and if you’ve never used their service before, you should. I’ll let them explain what they do:

What is Wufoo? Wufoo strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the Internet. Our HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.

It really is very easy to use wufoo. If you’re about to do a survey or need a quick form to collect data, use them…

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Mar102009

UMS Video Podcast

Posted by Gene in Usability, Blogging

We’re up to episode 8 now. How are we doing?

This week we focus on Mailchimp (mailchimp.com), Sustainable Party (sustainableparty.com), and Ryan O’Rourke (ryan-orourke.com).

I felt like we took Mailchimp.com to task on their user signup process. I think it’s a lesson in a successful web app that still needs some tweaking.

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Mar052009

250 pixels is all you get

Posted by Gene in Email Marketing

This is an old(ish) blog post over at the mailchimp blog talking about the 250 pixel box that you have to entice subscribers to click more. He couldn’t be more right on. I’ve always thought about the limited view of the outlook preview pane when I lay-out my email newsletter designs. But thinking only in terms of the 250 pixel box makes you think about the most important elements of email design. The links above have plenty of great pics and ideas about this subject, if you’re anywhere near an email design project, read these suckers first.

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Mar022009

90-9-1 Rule

Posted by Gene in Social Web

Here’s a different way to look at social media participation in your online community or marketing plan, the 90-9-1 Rule… My two cents, make sure and create a dynamic “discussion” between the creators and editors for your audience to watch. That’s where the magic is.

90% of users are the “audience”, or lurkers. The people tend to read or observe, but don’t actively contribute.
9% of users are “editors”, sometimes modifying content or adding to an existing thread, but rarely create content from scratch.
1% of users are “creators”, driving large amounts of the social group’s activity. More often than not, these people are driving a vast percentage of the site’s new content, threads, and activity.

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Period Three - Simple, Measurable, Powerful.

Insider tip to better email subject lines

Twitter growth being driven by unexpected uses

Episode 9 - UMS Design Review Podcast

Jimmy Fallon - I think he may understand…

Wufoo loves their customers

UMS Video Podcast

250 pixels is all you get

90-9-1 Rule

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