Email is Effective With Segmentation

One of the strongest advantages of e-mail is its ability to leverage segmentation. Here’s how the NFL uses e-mail to reach millions of devoted fans.

For a quarterback, getting the football to reach the targeted receiver's hands is the key to winning the game. For the National Football League, reaching the right target — a variety of enthusiastic fans — is also essential for marketing success. So, as football fans gear up for the new season, the NFL has made better e-mail segmentation a top priority.

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Tim Maloney, director of NFL direct marketing says, “Email is strong because of its ability to target. Our fan base is tech-savvy and it's about getting the right product to the right people at the right time, which e-mail does very well.”

The NFL fan database includes about 20 plus million names and, obviously, not all of these football aficionados are alike. For instance, loyalties are spread among the league's 32 different teams.

So, the NFL segments email recipients based on their personal profiles, including favorite team, demographic and location. An average NFL email, for example, is only sent to about 342,000 people, despite the huge number of fans in the database. This type of segmentation makes the information more relevant and helps avoid over-sending, which can lead to an increase in unsubscribes.

New segmentation strategies

While the league has segmented by favorite team for some time, this year, it has honed in on new ways to break up its e-mail list. One way is to send e-mails in conjunction with specific events.

For example, an e-mail was sent to football fans in the New York area to promote the America's Game series, an event at which highlights from last year's Super Bowl were screened. The e-mail was segmented by location to make it relevant to area recipients.

“The NFL is really trying to tie in a fan's favorite team and location to an event to make it relevant to the recipient,” explains Matt Hart, account director at eDialog, an email service provider that works with the NFL to send e-mails for various programs year-round. These include NFL.com newsletters, Fantasy Foot¬ball e-mails, NFLshop.com emails and co-branded partner emails.

The NFL also segments its lists with its welcome messages. Recently, the league began to send introductory emails branded with the NFL's loyalty credit card, Extra Points, to fans that opted in to a database of consumers who shop at NFLshop.com. Once a month, new subscribers receive a welcome email and an offer to sign up to for the credit card.

Fans can use their Extra Points card to earn loyalty points that can be exchanged for football-related products and experiences, including autographed memorabilia, sideline passes, golf games with players and Super Bowl tickets.

Even with those tantalizing options, credit cards can be a tough sell in today's market, Maloney says. “People don't look at an ad in a magazine to sign up for a credit card, but with e-mail, a recipient can click back to a site to learn more about the benefits of a loyalty card program,” he explains.

In July, the NFL sent out an email promoting the Extra Points card in advance of the upcoming new season. This email saw a 24% higher open rate than the average open rate of an Extra Points e-mail. “We only targeted people who have previously shopped online and segmented by favorite team, which is why it went so well,” Maloney says.

Another segmented e-mail was also sent in July, targeted towards people who had visited NFLshop.com, but who have never used their Extra Points cards to shop at the online store. This e-mail, which was meant to build interest in team merchandise for the upcoming season, offered football fans a chance to save 20% on products if they used their Extra Points credit card. It was sent to 395,000 people and saw an 18% to 20% open rate.

As the season moves forward, the NFL will test different campaigns through the season. “One of the benefits of e-mail is its speed to market,” Hart says. “A marketer can look at the response rates and analytics from a campaign within a day.” And, email programs can always be mildly tweaked based on how customers respond. This can help make email more relevant and make content more dynamic, resulting in greater performance.

Email is an effective tool if used properly.

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Market Your Products On EBay: Making Money In Tough Times

As times get tough more and more businesses are turning to ebay. Whether you’re trying to sell your own inventory, or trying to make big money selling products or services from other manufacturers, ebay is thriving in these uncertain times.

There are a variety of marketing programs to help you succeed on ebay. Here are the most popular:

1) SaleHoo Wholesale/eBay Directory. Stop spinning your wheels and join one of the largest, safest wholesale communities on the internet. Over 50,000 other online sellers, retailers and bargain hunters have discovered the best place to find legitimate, pre-screened wholesalers, drop shippers, liquidators and manufacturers for every type of product imaginable.

2) Build A Niche Store. Succeed as an eBay affiliate. Build A Niche Store (BANS) is a store / website development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. Over the past year and a half our "Niche Store" concept has really evolved and BANS has grown into a "proven" product with lots of positive feedback and success stories scattered across the web.

3) Auction Acrobat - eBay Delivery Automation Software. The most viable solution to eBay's digital product ban. Auction Acrobat is not just a software but an automated sales machine that delivers CD/DVD's, build a buyer list, and much much more... Now you can make long term residual income on eBay without selling!

4) Make Money On eBay And Your Own Website. Access 500 true drop shippers! This free turnkey ecommerce website is stocked with 200,000 drop ship products, allowing you to sell online without purchasing any inventory of your own. Free hosting and free domain names are available.

5) Content Website Builder. Create a website in 2 easy steps for eBay. Content Website Builder is an easy to use website creation software. You can make websites with hundreds of self-updating dynamic pages with keyword rich text, images, and videos. Integrated eBay, Adsense, Amazon, Yahoo!Answers and YouTube.

6) Auction Classified Cash. This product shows you how to create the perfect eBay classified ads that put more cash into your pocket and more subscribers on your lists. This program is most effective for those new to eBay or looking to improve the profitability of their sales.

7) The Silent Sales Machine Hiding On EBay. This top selling products is approaching 100,000 copies sold. Called one of the "most creative eBay ebooks ever written" by leading affiliate magazines, The Silent Sales Machine Hiding On Ebay is your key to eBay success. The product includes free upgrades (version 6 Releasing Soon).

8) Money Animal. Don't let the name fool you. This product just launched and includes an exceptional member network and affiliate support. Learn to work from home by following step-by-step instruction for traffic using Adwords and EBay for online income. Full support is provided. See there sales page!

9) Auction Inspector. Niche software for eBay. If you are struggling to find profitable products to sell on eBay, then the Auction Inspector is for you. They guarantee to find you products that will make you money and that you can actually sell on eBay.

10) Become An eBay PowerSeller In 90 Days. This program has helped 1000s of people gain eBay PowerSeller status and achieve their online goals. Work from the comfort of your own home and earn the income you deserve.

Selling on ebay is a great marketing solution in today's tough economic times. Learn to sell on eBay and your business will thrive even though the market continues to tumble. Marketing on ebay is easy to do and requires little or no startup costs.

Is Your Website Customer Focused?

You’re at a dinner reception. The stranger next to you strikes up a conversation.

It only takes a few minutes before you realize: “This guy’s completely self-absorbed.” No matter how hard you try, every topic leads back to him. Soon, you find yourself inching away.

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Guess what? You can find the same thing on the web. Sites that are egocentric. More interested in talking about themselves than solving customer problems. However, unlike the dinner reception situation, your escape from a self-absorbed website is quick and painless.

(Although there are offenders across the board, the biggest culprits seem to be business-to-business companies and small- to mid-sized firms.)

To heck with product benefits or helping prospects and customers solve their problems – the narcissistic website dwells on the company’s spectacularly engineered offerings, their superior manufacturing techniques, the brilliance of their people, the company’s offices. Is there a place for bragging? Sure, but it’s secondary to the customer’s issues. Too many websites forget this.

When you consider that the average visitor has an attention span measured in seconds, and that he scans the web instead of reading every word, a narcissistic website has the same effect as a narcissistic tablemate: it turns people off.

In contrast, an intelligent website doesn’t leave a visitor stranded, searching for the customer benefits of the company’s products or services. It:

¨ Provides clear statements that are customer benefit oriented

¨ Supports its claims (often using customer and third party support)

¨ Proactively addresses potential objections

¨ Ushers the visitor into a dialogue

Let’s look at a very simple before-and-after example.

We’re at the website of a widget manufacturer. Their target market? Widget buyers from manufacturing firms.

The homepage leads off with:

"Since 1908, Acme Widget has precision-manufactured more than 10,000 varieties of widgets. What’s the Acme difference? State-of-the-art technology – including the latest laser manufacturing techniques – along with six sigma processes to ensure the highest quality."

Sound good to you? Where does the customer fit in?

While prospects and customers care a lot about the companies they deal with, they care first and foremost about their own needs. In this instance: “How will Acme Widget solve my problems?”

Here’s another take on the copy:

“Whether you are looking for red, green, purple or color matched widgets, no other company offers a wider selection, faster delivery or more production-friendly engineered designs than Acme Widget.

Independent tests show that using the Acme ViperWidget can result in improving your production speeds by as much as 35%, while significantly reducing defective rates over traditional widgets.

Great selection. Fast delivery. Increased production speeds and reduced defectives for lower overall manufacturing costs. One name. Acme.

Download our free white paper, ‘Increasing Your Production Speed while Lowering Defectives with Better Engineered Widgets,” highlighting the recent tests of more than five hundred widgets conducted by independent testing laboratory, International Widget Laboratories."

This time, the copy speaks to the interests of the customer. Customer problems – and Acme’s solution – stand front and center. Note, I still referred to the Acme's engineering abilities. The difference here is that the reference to engineering is now linked to customer benefits.

Imagine a widget buyer visiting two sites: one with the first copy, the other with the second.

¨ With the first site, the buyer learns a little about the company, but not enough to differentiate it from the competition. And not nearly enough to understand, and appreciate, the benefits of doing business with the firm.

¨ At the second site, the buyer learns about the company’s wide selection, fast delivery, exceptional production speeds and lower defect rates. All strengths she can quickly grasp. What’s more, the white paper provides third-party support – validation – for the company’s claims.

The underlying concept is simple and an underlying marketing communications truth. The most effective marketing communications puts your customers and prospects first, not your company. By focusing on customer and prospect needs, you are more likely to fulfill your company's needs.

As obvious as this statement would appear, it is similarly obvious that many marketers don't really follow it.

A Quick Check-up to Find if Your Company Website is Doing the Job

Pretend you are a customer visiting your company's website for the first time. Write down five key concerns you have related to purchasing these kinds of products or services or choosing a company that you feel (or marketing research indicates) reflects the key concerns of your target market when researching companies like yours. Spend up to one minute at your website. Close the browser. How many of your five key concerns were addressed? How well did they address your concerns? A brief amount of copy addressing a key concern and a link to more detail is fine; no mention of these concerns is not.

Did the web page copy get to the heart of your concern or was it focused on the itself instead of the prospects needs? Use what you have learned to further test your website in front of real prospects and customers. Find out their most important problems they are hoping your website will help them answer and re-design your website around helping them.

Post provided by Mr. Peter DeLegge, the publisher of Marketing Today. He has more than fifteen years experience in marketing and marketing communications management and marketing consulting with Fortune 500 to medium size corporations. He can be reached at peterdlAThotmailDOTcom.