Holiday Marketing 2015

Etsy is stepping things up a bit now..

They just announced their giving away $100 gift cards via email every week for:

Publishers who create gift guides on their blogs/sites.

It's still a giveaway, with a chance to win*.

...

I've been building a PC lately and have been following all the sales/promotions.

Here's one from EVGA, http://www.evga.com/articles/00966/EVGA-Winter-Meltdown/

Another, "chance to win".. Their giving away product in exchange for:

- Facebook/Twitter followers, Pinterest Pins, and referrals. ~191 people have completed it with the past 24 hours, and it runs another 13 days. Just in time for the Holiday Season/Black Friday.

The campaign costs them: $2,190 (retail), let's say their margin is 40% for base costs. The total would be $876 in product. Very small $ to recoup back from referral sales/free promotion.
 
Okay soo... My inbox has been destroyed.

rx7E0iu.gif


I've gotten over 590 emails from these companies since I started, and those are just the ones I've aggregating into nice charts for you folks.

What I can tell you is right now Amazon is completely behind, I'm baffled at that one, cause I thought they would be emailing me daily, no. Most of the big boys are now emailing me twice a day, some got up to 3 times a day during Black Friday and Cyber Monday times, then they dropped to one a day emails, but now the final 5 days they are making the big push.

I've also got some great sears comments coming, but Jesus I don't even know where to begin with this update. Here is the pattern since the 31st:

9YHJKWx.png


^^ that top spike is CyberMonday (November 30th).

--

Spam increased tremendously. Even though it's the holidays where you expected to get a bit of more spam, I went from 1-2 spam emails a day to over 500 emails a day. That tells me one or more of these companies are selling their database or their mailing lists are easily accessible to spammers. :(

5R3uWbD.gif


The interesting part is it's to an email address which I hardly use, so the increase in spam alongside me signing up to these big brands is a bit troubling to say the least. Normally around the holidays I expect to get an extra 20 a day - MAYBE. 500+ spam emails a day... That' doesn't sound right at any level.

Maybe someone is selling portions of one of these company's lists. Maybe one of their ESPs (email service provider) is hacked/leaked. Maybe one of their 3rd party providers which they allow are doing unscrupulous things or reselling the list, or an employee. There can be so many leaks it's impossible to pinpoint at any level. This is why I suggest every 200-500 emails within your list you put dummy emails to see if your ESP or someone else is screwing around and mailing your list without your permission.

--

Started this experiment on Nov 1st, but signed up for several on Nov 2nd. SO about 48-47 days ago. So for the total count has been a bit interesting. So far total Emails count:

Walmart - 88
Target - 74
Bloomingdales - 59
SearsCanada - 48
LandsEnd - 47
TigerDirect - 45
Sears - 44
HomeDepot - 41
JCPenney - 34
Amazon - 33
Macys - 27
BestBuy - 23
ShopYourWay - 12
AmazonAssociates - 8
TargetAffiliate - 8
WalmartAffiliate - 2
Kmart - 2

^^ I should note, when I initially signed up for Sears it stated I was connected through their Kmart portal as well, but I never received any emails from Kmart, so on Dec 15th I went back to Kmart and re-signed up. That ShopYourway one is Sears as well, some abomination portal or something I dunno, but every time I clicked on anything it was going to 404 errors anyways if I recall. I can state safely 100% of the emails I got from Sears, ShopYourWay, and Kmart all went to junk/spam, cause of the way they send out emails, and I might have a mega post coming soon that will highlight that.

--

I expected Amazon of all companies to be up there within the top 5, if not #1 in terms of email aggression, and I'm a bit disappointed. Walmart just took that crown in aggressiveness this season. Target surprised me at #2 cause for a moment I thought they actually took the #1 spot. You can see by the email rate who is serious and hungry and who is not. Now BestBuy coming in completely last place (when removing the affiliate and Kmart) from the equation is mind-boggling. Most of the Mega brands were sending out daily emails, and had an interesting schedule. They would always post at the exact same times so it told me the campaigns were organized on a clock system.

I'm going to go into details about each brand later on, but I just wanted to catch up cause we are in the end game to this holiday, and I'm going to love absorbing everything. I noticed that most brands are in "get it before Christmas with fast shipping" and emphasizing on fast delivery in this stage. It's sort of weird but there were beautiful stages of this whole holiday that makes me shed a tear cause it's been perfected down to a science now. These guys know when to send that email, when to hit the pressure points, and when to back off.

I am starting to think now though Amazon probably slowed down emails cause I wasn't sending an "Open" signal back for emails, but that wouldn't explain the most recent emails from them. Knowing Amazon's beastness I know they didn't overwhelm my inbox for a reason and that was done on purpose, so I'm assuming they've got some advance segments, cause the other probability, that they dropped the ball this season seems a bit far-fetched, but you never know.
 
Caught Target Slipping Majorly

On Dec 23rd, at 5:00pm EST, Target's Affiliate team sent out an email telling their affiliates that Target is now offering up to 8% commission, even on Apple product as a holiday incentive. Why in the world would they send this out on the eve of Christmas eve instead of at the beginning of the holiday is beyond me. This seems like a major screw up on timing on their part. They must have noticed this and extended this to "January 31st" due to that blunder, which is long after the holiday, problem is they focus on "December bonus", so the email was clearly suppose to go out way early in the holiday season. Whoever Shandi Michno is, they must be pissed!

Timing is critical to all things:

aNjDbDJ.jpg
 
I'm back and noticed a couple of things since this thread:

#1 Sears' stepped up their game with their emails recently and they no longer are going straight to spam so someone clearly got the message. I've got logs of this nonsense up until 2 or 3 months, and I'll be doing a conclusion to my favorite thread. But #2 I saw this and immediately thought, WTF:

SzrzIXF.jpg


There seems to be a lot of people still sleeping at the wheel at Sears...
 
2016 Holidays are coming up so I figure I can post my quick proper send off - Holiday 2015, what I learned from the majors:

#1. Amazon is not as email hungry as I thought.

#2. No one at Sears.com (USA) knows what the fuck they are doing. Like literally no one. 100% of Sears' emails has a spam score of above 5.0, meaning 100% of their emails didn't get pass SpamAssassin and went straight to junk mail (up to about Jun 2016). My email doesn't even represent a majority of people cause it's a bit liberal with the spam settings, but the fact that ALL their emails during the holidays went to junk and for rather ridiculous reasons is mind-boggling.

ALL they literally had to do was change a couple of settings, mainly change their tracking system that creates, and I quote from the Spam report "ridiculously long URLs", for both their outbound URLs and their images. If they do that and a couple of other adjustments which I'll explain in a follow-up they would have made $XX million more in revenue this holiday season just as an easy guesstimate. But no one realizes the simple fact that all their emails are going to spam. NO OTHER MAJOR BRAND I HAVE BEEN MONITORING GOES TO SPAM - and especially at a 100% RATE.

All Sears investors should be up in arms they are losing money and revenue from costly simple mistakes, it's completely mind-boggling and baffling. I'd be extremely pissed if I was holding Sears stock.

#3. Target is a killer in email - AND in their weekly reminders to their affiliates on Wednesdays about different offers and communication. Basically Sears needs to steal Target's online marketing team for a couple of months and fix their operation. I don't know when Target became killers, but man they are - If I ever had the inclination to have a job, yuck!, Target's web marketing team would be on my list of places to consider.

#4. Land's End must have been crippled by Sears' savagery in the past, but it's clear they've a great online presence. It's so crazy, cause Sears bought them, then Lands' End got spun-off or removed, or left or whatever, and Lands' End is doing 1000% better out from underneath the horrible management of Sears. I can see why Sears is dying from an outsider just by looking at Sears & Kmart's email campaigns versus Land's End campaign - a company that used to be under Sears' management and is no longer. I don't know that back story, but I suspect incompetence in Sears' management whether it's due to their crippling Lands' End growth or not seeing the value Lands' End brought cause they have an on-point marketing campaign. Nothing crazy, but it's consistent, and it doesn't end up in SPAM!

#5 - Most important - Email marketing creats revenue. Emailing your list when they are hot and continuing to do so will keep your brand in the consumer's mind! I haven't stopped receiving these emails from all the brands, but I can say alot of have slowed down - except for Target, Lands' End, Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, Bloomingdales, and "Sears... Canada"!
 
Jeez, its been almost a year already?
 
I have to quote the ENTIRE post by @CCarter right now. Even though Sears (CA) were pounding your email inbox while Sears (USA) was twiddling their thumbs, it just wasn't enough.

RIP Sears CA.

"No one at Sears.com (USA) knows what the fuck they are doing. Like literally no one." - CCarter

Let's see if they figure it out this season.

CCarter said:
2016 Holidays are coming up so I figure I can post my quick proper send off - Holiday 2015, what I learned from the majors:

#1. Amazon is not as email hungry as I thought.

#2. No one at Sears.com (USA) knows what the fuck they are doing. Like literally no one. 100% of Sears' emails has a spam score of above 5.0, meaning 100% of their emails didn't get pass SpamAssassin and went straight to junk mail (up to about Jun 2016). My email doesn't even represent a majority of people cause it's a bit liberal with the spam settings, but the fact that ALL their emails during the holidays went to junk and for rather ridiculous reasons is mind-boggling.

ALL they literally had to do was change a couple of settings, mainly change their tracking system that creates, and I quote from the Spam report "ridiculously long URLs", for both their outbound URLs and their images. If they do that and a couple of other adjustments which I'll explain in a follow-up they would have made $XX million more in revenue this holiday season just as an easy guesstimate. But no one realizes the simple fact that all their emails are going to spam. NO OTHER MAJOR BRAND I HAVE BEEN MONITORING GOES TO SPAM - and especially at a 100% RATE.

All Sears investors should be up in arms they are losing money and revenue from costly simple mistakes, it's completely mind-boggling and baffling. I'd be extremely pissed if I was holding Sears stock.

#3. Target is a killer in email - AND in their weekly reminders to their affiliates on Wednesdays about different offers and communication. Basically Sears needs to steal Target's online marketing team for a couple of months and fix their operation. I don't know when Target became killers, but man they are - If I ever had the inclination to have a job, yuck!, Target's web marketing team would be on my list of places to consider.

#4. Land's End must have been crippled by Sears' savagery in the past, but it's clear they've a great online presence. It's so crazy, cause Sears bought them, then Lands' End got spun-off or removed, or left or whatever, and Lands' End is doing 1000% better out from underneath the horrible management of Sears. I can see why Sears is dying from an outsider just by looking at Sears & Kmart's email campaigns versus Land's End campaign - a company that used to be under Sears' management and is no longer. I don't know that back story, but I suspect incompetence in Sears' management whether it's due to their crippling Lands' End growth or not seeing the value Lands' End brought cause they have an on-point marketing campaign. Nothing crazy, but it's consistent, and it doesn't end up in SPAM!

#5 - Most important - Email marketing creats revenue. Emailing your list when they are hot and continuing to do so will keep your brand in the consumer's mind! I haven't stopped receiving these emails from all the brands, but I can say alot of have slowed down - except for Target, Lands' End, Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, Bloomingdales, and "Sears... Canada"!
Click to expand...
 
Prentzz said:
Let's see if they figure it out this season.
Click to expand...

The reality is Sears USA is right behind it; the ironic part is that Amazon is literally using Sear's strategies from 100 years ago to decimate Sears.

"One hundred years ago, a retail giant that shipped millions of products by mail moved swiftly into the brick-and-mortar business, changing it forever. Is that happening again?"

[..]

Mail was an internet before the internet. After the Civil War, several new communications and transportations systems—the telegraph, rail, and parcel delivery—made it possible to shop at home and have items delivered to your door. Americans browsed catalogues on their couches for jewelry, food, and books. Merchants sent the parcels by rail.

[..]

In the decade between 1895 and 1905, Sears’s revenue grew by a factor of 50, from about $750,000 to about $38 million, according to Alfred D. Chandler Jr.’s 1977 book The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. (By comparison, in the last decade, Amazon’s revenue has grown by a factor of 10.)

[..]

The company’s brick-and-mortar transformation was astonishing. At the start of 1925, there were no Sears stores in the United States. By 1929, there were 300. While Montgomery Ward built 90 percent of its stores in rural areas or small cities, and Woolworth focused on rich urban areas, Sears bet on everything—rural and urban, rich and poor, farmers and manufacturers. Geographically, it disproportionately built where the Statistical Abstract showed growth: in southern, southwestern, and western cities.

[..]

It’s remarkable how Sears’s rise anticipates Amazon’s. The growth of both companies was the result of a focus on operations efficiency, low prices, and a keen eye on the future of American demographics.

[..]

Growing inequality in the U.S. may offer new challenges to building a truly national retailer. But once again, Sears offers a lesson. The company thrived as long as it used U.S. demographics as a guide—following Americans to the suburbs of the South and West, and selling parts for their favorite new toy, the automobile. Amazon, too, will thrive as long as it uses American demographics as a roadmap and takes advantage of new personal technology, like mobile phones for shopping and AI assistants for the home. In the last six months, Amazon has spent $13 billion to buy Whole Foods and its upscale urban locations. At the same time, it has offered discounts for low-income shoppers to become Prime subscribers. Perhaps Sears’s descendant can become an everything store for everyone.

Sauce: The History of Sears Predicts Nearly Everything Amazon Is Doing​

--
The same problems that Amazon is facing with backlash of merchants and regulators Sears had to finesse it's way out of. With the way the internet moves, it may not be 100 years till the end of Amazon, it may be a mere 5-20 years. The only constant in the universe is change - nothing lasts forever.

Perhaps even Builder Society will be one of the first to report on the demise of Amazon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back