Bronto Blog

It was a lovely morning (8AM) in Durham, NC as Kimberly and I rendezvoused in the friendly confines of our local Starbucks Barista. Kimberly was sipping on a tall peppermint mocha; I was working my standard “medium” (I refuse to call it Grande) coffee. As we began brainstorming this month’s topic for BrontoFire, Kimberly suddenly shouted out, “Don’t Hide That Unsubscribe.” After I cleaned up the coffee I spit out in a fit of laughter, I told Kimberly: “Great idea. Let’s roll.”

Below is a recap of the 45-minute conversation that ensued. We reviewed some of the big boys - Barnes & Noble, Big Lots, Costco, Reebok, TurboTax (Intuit). Enjoy.

Barnes & Noble

DJ - I like how they have a bolded section, “How to unsubscribe.” However, why do I need to log in to my account in order to change my preferences?

Kimberly - Furthermore, DJ, I really don’t like the fact that I have to follow detailed instructions on how to manage my preferences. Don’t make me work so hard.

Big Lots

Kimberly - I like the phrase “we will promptly remove you from our list.” They are clearly telling me what they will do and then are doing it. I believe and trust them more because of this statement. To boot, I really like the fact that they list my favorite store and allow me to update it very quickly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bad consumer behavior mixed with bad email marketing practices is potentially brewing a perfect storm within Yahoo!

I raise the question: “What if consumers with Yahoo! accounts are not taking the time to manually mark what is truly SPAM?”

If the majority of consumer’s Yahoo! inboxes mirror mine, the chances that their frustration has boiled over is very real – hence they could be blindly and boldly checking the box at the top of the page and mass mark all messages as SPAM. By doing so they could be flagging several valid messages they have willingly subscribed to and are interested in viewing as SPAM in one simple and very tempting click of their mouse.

Read the rest of this entry »

At the moment, I am truly confused with the current state of my personal Yahoo! account. As a long time end user of Yahoo!, I have recently started to question the accuracy of their inbox filtering system. I no longer receive mail I have subscribed to except on a rare occasion. I do however continue to receive an endless wave of SPAM which is cause for concern. The unfortunate state of my account has raised a very real question – “what has happened to my Yahoo! Inbox?”

As an avid online consumer I have signed up to receive messages from a wide array of leading retail companies. I have always entrusted my account to feed my shopping impulses – knowing I would receive at least two or three messages a day from my favorite retailers. Over the last four months though, my inbox has run amuck with more and more SPAM and fewer and fewer retail messages.

What propelled me to write this post though was the fact that over the last month the havoc in my Yahoo! account has hit an all-time high. I am currently bombarded with unwanted, irrelevant SPAM and no longer receiving the vast majority of the mail I have willingly subscribed to. For example, I have not received a message from HSN in over two and a half weeks or my weekly messages from Toys “R” Us since the beginning of February.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had the fortune of attending the Online Marketing Summit this past week in San Diego and the “buzzword” was social media. What is it? How does it impact your business? How do you make it work without compromising your brand? All loaded questions. The most important takeaway was the need to commit the time and the resources to making it successful. In the ever-changing marketing landscape, we often neglect planning and instead focus on acting. Both are needed to create a cohesive social network that delivers relevancy and collaboration. Add in multi-channel tactics promoting your network and you have created a cohesive strategy.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many cool aspects of working in the technology industry is learning (and developing) new terms. In case you missed it, a few newbies over the past several months include:

• Bacn: Bronto highlighted it in this very blog a few months back; there is even an entire site dedicated to Bacn (buy your shirt now)
• Remail: Tactic #5, or remarketing as some have named it
• Preheader / Snippet Text: see details below

So…what is the “snippet text?” Stefan Pollard defines it as the “tiny but significant parcel of real estate in your email message.” I especially like his “3-step Extreme Snippet Makeover.”

Lisa Harmon - one of the Voices of Email contributors from the Email Experience Council Blog - evaluates a few messages which utilize the snippet text, or preheader as she calls it. The Pottery Barn Kids example is most in line with what I’d recommend. The key is adding value (i.e, more than “if you’re having trouble viewing…”), while avoiding rehashing what you have in the email body. Comment #1 validates this very point.

I wrote about preheaders back in October of 2007. Since that time, I’ve worked with several clients and you’d be amazed at the results. Click-throughs on the clear call-to-action in the preheader have shot through the roof. It’s amazing that your creative department can spend all that time (and $$) on building “the perfect” email design, and all subscribers want to do is go directly to your site!

Please comment on this blog post with ways you’ve successfully utilized the preheader. The revolution begins now.

DJ Waldow
Account Manager at Bronto