Week 3: Analyzing E-Mail Alerts
Success and failures of Email marketing campaign is always measured by the open rate of the emails. It shows that what percentage of customers have actually opened the email and clicked on the subject line to open the email content. Page views is to measure the traffic on a web page, average order value is not related to email campaign directly.
The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that entails various requirements as well as sets the new rules for all commercial emails. This Act is used particularly in order to establish rules and regulations for commercial messaging. The Act also gives power to the recipients to decide whether or not they want to unsubscribe or stop sending emails to them. If not followed or maintained properly, there are consequences such as penalties and violations to pay. To know whether one's business is under the CAN-SPAM act we need to focus on the content we are passing.
The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that entails various requirements as well as sets the new rules for all commercial emails. This Act is used particularly in order to establish rules and regulations for commercial messaging. The Act also gives power to the recipients to decide whether or not they want to unsubscribe or stop sending emails to them. If not followed or maintained properly, there are consequences such as penalties and violations to pay. To know whether one's business is under the CAN-SPAM act we need to focus on the content we are passing.
- For commercial content one must use the advertisements or the promotions of the commercial product or service which must include only the content on the website operated for the commercial purpose only.
- For transaction content, one must facilitate to agree upon the transaction which is always required to update the customer about any of the ongoing transactions.
- For any other content we can use either of the rules but only for the content which is neither of the both listed above.
The three companies I am following are Amazon, Google and Apple.
Apple: Apple has a great direct marketing and e-mail design. For Direct Marketing techniques, Apple uses email marketing to deliver particular information over to it's databases of both current as well as potential consumers in the market. Their email communications have proved to support their product launches and educates consumers on new products. The campaigns that the direct marketing team produces cover all of Apple’s products and are intended to encourage a large range of actions, ranging from visiting apple.com, to finding out additional information about the product, to making a purchase on the online store. There are several ways that Apple uses public relations to promote their products.
Apple is compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act as they give that option when they send emails for users to unsubscribe from emails, however there were various complaints made that Apple truly does not maintain or keep up with their subscriptions and even after clicking the "Unsubscribe" button numerous times, they are still continuing to receive spam email.
Google: Google does not rely heavily on email marketing to promote their company, however they have millions of users log directly onto Google.com therefore making up for the fact that they do not need to market through an email strategy since majority of their traffic is through their search engine database. Google does not use a traditional method of marketing. Traditional marketing methods are not as dynamic as digital marketing. They are used by many eCommerce forms because their customer base is such and they have been able to reap good revenues out of the traditional methods and hence they do not want to change the success formula but in no way we can assume that traditional marketing is as dynamic as digital marketing.
Google also complies with the Act as again, they provide the button to unsubscribe. However, it is not 100% as some users, similar to Apple find themselves having to constantly click the unsubscribe button to no avail.
Apple is compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act as they give that option when they send emails for users to unsubscribe from emails, however there were various complaints made that Apple truly does not maintain or keep up with their subscriptions and even after clicking the "Unsubscribe" button numerous times, they are still continuing to receive spam email.
Google: Google does not rely heavily on email marketing to promote their company, however they have millions of users log directly onto Google.com therefore making up for the fact that they do not need to market through an email strategy since majority of their traffic is through their search engine database. Google does not use a traditional method of marketing. Traditional marketing methods are not as dynamic as digital marketing. They are used by many eCommerce forms because their customer base is such and they have been able to reap good revenues out of the traditional methods and hence they do not want to change the success formula but in no way we can assume that traditional marketing is as dynamic as digital marketing.
Google also complies with the Act as again, they provide the button to unsubscribe. However, it is not 100% as some users, similar to Apple find themselves having to constantly click the unsubscribe button to no avail.
Amazon: Amazon's approach to email marketing is all about functionality rather than aesthetics. Which is good, but a little bit frustrating at the same time. Sure it's great that their emails are functional and you get the information you need out of it, but a part of me feels that a company like Amazon could be pushing the boundaries a little harder with their emails just to keep up with the times and remain a bit more modern. Their ability to have such heavy data driven emails which are so well targeted and personalized makes the emails not feel like an intrusion into your inbox. And they're never overly frequent either. A lot of retailers are incredibly guilty of over-emailing and over-doing marketing through emails but Amazon does not do that. Amazon only ever send emails after website actions or perhaps big retail events, such as Black Friday. There's never an email for the sake of an email.
Personally, I find the topic of the CAN-SPAM Act very interesting since the industry I work basically uses email for all forms of communication. I work as a Market/Marketing Researcher for a consulting/search firm and a large part of my job is to market our services directly to clients via iContact, which is a marketing database that compiles all of our contacts previously collected in a folder that can be easily emailed about our recruiting services. The contacts are broken down by categories by territory and location, so for example if you would like to email accounting superiors in the Seattle, Washington area we upload our contacts into a Seattle, Washington folder and by the click of one button we have the power to email over 100,000+ contacts easily an email template inquiring their needs of employment and to use our consulting firm. This database allows contacts that we have added to also unsubscribe from our marketing emails and we receive this through our Managing Director/SVP's regular inbox in the form of an email. One of my duties daily, is to remove users who have emailed us wishing to unsubscribe. Now, depending on how many emails we send, I would be removing from 100-300 every week (the number can fluctuate depending on the territory we are working on as well as the number of emails we send).
This particular subject was such a great and interesting topic for me, since I was basically hired to do email marketing for our company! Until I read about the CAN-SPAM Act, I had no idea there was actually a law in place set up for companies who violate those specifically categories. Anyway, I am definitely much more informed and since this is something I do on a daily and regular basis, I can truly say that email marketing is such a huge part and aspect of my life and although I was performing these duties everyday there was still information I was not aware of and overall, it was nice to educate myself about it in general.
Personally, I find the topic of the CAN-SPAM Act very interesting since the industry I work basically uses email for all forms of communication. I work as a Market/Marketing Researcher for a consulting/search firm and a large part of my job is to market our services directly to clients via iContact, which is a marketing database that compiles all of our contacts previously collected in a folder that can be easily emailed about our recruiting services. The contacts are broken down by categories by territory and location, so for example if you would like to email accounting superiors in the Seattle, Washington area we upload our contacts into a Seattle, Washington folder and by the click of one button we have the power to email over 100,000+ contacts easily an email template inquiring their needs of employment and to use our consulting firm. This database allows contacts that we have added to also unsubscribe from our marketing emails and we receive this through our Managing Director/SVP's regular inbox in the form of an email. One of my duties daily, is to remove users who have emailed us wishing to unsubscribe. Now, depending on how many emails we send, I would be removing from 100-300 every week (the number can fluctuate depending on the territory we are working on as well as the number of emails we send).
This particular subject was such a great and interesting topic for me, since I was basically hired to do email marketing for our company! Until I read about the CAN-SPAM Act, I had no idea there was actually a law in place set up for companies who violate those specifically categories. Anyway, I am definitely much more informed and since this is something I do on a daily and regular basis, I can truly say that email marketing is such a huge part and aspect of my life and although I was performing these duties everyday there was still information I was not aware of and overall, it was nice to educate myself about it in general.
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