Barack Obama and List Building "Buts"

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." said Einstein. He also said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Presumably he was referring to open rates.

Like any aspect of life and business, email marketing often falls back on truisms and assumptions. And part of what makes a great marketer is a willingness to keep on examining those assumptions.

Stefan Pollard recently wrote a wry article pointing out the dangers in taking your email marketing lead from alleged role models in the online world. They're not necessarily doing it right, either.

Copying without critical assessment is inadvisable.

First, because you might be copying from a bad email marketer, as Stefan explains.

Second, because they might know something you don't.

For example, you might wonder why a top retailer keeps sending you image-rich emails with little concern for how they render when images are blocked.

It might not be because they are design challenged, but because they know you opened your last four emails from them. So they can be pretty sure you'll be seeing those images.

Third, you might be in a test sample. The one that got the losing design / offer.

(One well-known website optimization site actually used to warn visitors not to copy their design, because what the visitor currently sees might just be an experiment for research purposes.)

I thought this was about Barack Obama and list building?

Yep.

The Obama campaign gets a lot of legitimate praise for their use of email and Web 2.0 marketing techniques in building support, communication programs and donations.

Most recently, this praise has concerned the "Be the First to Know" push, which invites people to sign-up for an email or text so they'll hear the name of his running mate before the formal public announcement.

Sundeep Kapur notes the value inherent in "elevating" the email channel like this. And Stephanie Miller explains the importance of giving subscribers something unique which makes them feel valued.

A useful model and concept to apply to your own efforts: can you offer something unique and special to email subscribers to encourage people to sign-up in the first place or become more loyal?

But...

It's not all perfect. The sign-up copy you see at the site focuses entirely on the "Be the First to Know" concept. So it's not clear exactly what you are signing up for. When you don't set expectations, people invent their own.

Which makes it harder for you to meet those expectations.

My assumption when I signed up, for example, was that I'd get a welcome message with some indication of when to expect an announcement and then the actual email itself some time after that.

I got no welcome message. I did get an email last night...an invite from a Jon Carson to attend a Convention Watch Party in my area. (Update: ...and another two emails today, neither of which mention anything to do with the choice of running mate).

Now it's not a big deal. Many of you will think that the whole point of the subscription push was to build a list you can market too.

Yes, but there are problems.

First, I had very high expectations of that email (I thought I was going to find out the name of the running mate). So the generic message was a letdown.

Second, it's a disconnect between what many subscribers likely expect when they sign up and what they get. Not a disconnect for everybody or perhaps even for the majority. But a proportion of new subscribers only wanted and only expected that VP announcement. Not the other stuff. How do they react?

Setting the right expectations and then meeting them is important to establishing a smooth transition from prospect to loyal reader.

The Obama campaign may feel the likely huge number of additional subscribers justifies being a touch vague about the nature of the sign-up. But if a large enough minority are disappointed, how does that impact your brand? How many people already unsubscribed or hit the "report spam" button?

What do you think?

Tags: list building, barack obama, email marketing

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