Better know your customers and what they like and need instead of blasting them with generic info and offers. The secret word is relevance. First up was Annette Promes, director of email marketing for Expedia. She wanted to know which offer–points towards free travel, a cash discount code, or a general message promising savings–did a better job of increasing response to hotel offers from customers who had signed up for a ThankYou® Rewards Network membership. The points treatment lifted click-through by 82% and transactions a whopping 347% while the code/coupon, while also doing well, increased clicks by 24% and transactions by “only” 106%. Customers had signed up for the points program, and it was points they desired. Promes warned against training customers not to do business with you unless they get a coupon. Kimberley Talbot, senior group manager of worldwide relationship marketing for Adobe also proved relevance is the key with her case study of the launch of the Creative Suite 3 product. Talbot segmented the campaign to meet the needs of three customer segments in general: designers, photographers, and educators. The creatives got an email with one stunning, original graphic on a white background and a minimum of copy. Photographers got more tech specs to check out. Educators were told how the software could prepare students for future success. Then Talbot used a propensity model to ID which customers were early, mid, and late adopters and crafted her email Call-To-Action accordingly. She focused additional direct marketing spend on the early adopters. Her results? A mind-blowing email campaign ROI of 29,000% in North America and 5,000% worldwide. A 41% increase in overall order rate and a 72% increase in direct orders vs. a “no contact” control. “Customers proved they know what they need,” said Talbot. “They purchased what we predicted they would… but they were exposed to more products.” Source: http://www.marketingexperimentsblog.com/research-topics/email-marketing/29000-roi-on-an-email-campaign-the-secret-is-one-word-25-08.php Follow

In my recent article, I discussed eight common design mistakes with account sign-in. In this article, I outline eight additional mistakes we’ve seen as we watch users try to create accounts and sign into the site. Mistake #9: Not Telling Users the Requirements for Username and Password Up Front On the Cisco site, when selecting a User ID, users are told that it “must contain at least one letter and no spaces. May contain numbers.” It’s only after the user enters a six-letter user id that an error message appears amending the rules that the id must be “a length between 9 and 50 characters.” It’s not clear why Cisco felt the need to surprise short-labeled users with this additional requirement. None of the users we tested were pleased to learn this additional information. When creating a new Google Mail account, Google provides a “Check Availability” button, which will inform users about the minimum length requirement (6 characters). This is better than Cisco, in that the user isn’t forced to fill out the entire page before discerning whether their desired account name is legal and open. Blinksale does one better, giving feedback on every character typed. As the user enters an id, the design tells them it is too short or contains illegal characters. Mistake #10: Requiring Stricter Password Requirements Than The NSA We couldn’t stop picking on Cisco without giving you one final peek into their registration process: the page explaining how to choose a password is two-and-a-half screens long. They don’t want anyone buying golf balls under false pretenses. Many people choose passwords based on the underlying importance of the information. They ask themselves, “How much trouble will I get into if this information gets out?” Several folks we talked to use a small number of passwords, each chosen for the underlying security. The tougher the security policy, the more likely their regular passwords won’t work. That will mean they need to create and remember a new password — something that involves a lot of cognitive work (and probably not work they thought they’d have to sign up for). It’s important that sites not go overboard with security requirements unless there’s a lot of risk involved with a breach. Mistake #11: Using Challenge Questions They Won’t Remember In A Year One Follow