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Ask Emma your question now.
Join the Ask Emma mailing list and receive our near-weekly series in your inbox.
Emma answers your questions about email marketing and life
in general.
Recent Q&A
in general.
Recent Q&A
Dear Emma,
So, I just went to see "The Hulk." And while I'm not necessarily looking to turn green or ruin a perfectly good business suit the moment the coffee maker gets out of whack, being able to accomplish a few superhero-ish feats using that new recent audience activity feature sure would be nice. Any ideas, Emma?
Thanks,
Hulkish in Saratoga
So, I just went to see "The Hulk." And while I'm not necessarily looking to turn green or ruin a perfectly good business suit the moment the coffee maker gets out of whack, being able to accomplish a few superhero-ish feats using that new recent audience activity feature sure would be nice. Any ideas, Emma?
Thanks,
Hulkish in Saratoga
Dear Hulkish,
We can't promise superhuman strength or any kind of coy dialogue with Liv Tyler, but that unassuming little box called "Recent Activity" you've noticed at the top of your audience section *can* show you some very impressive things about your subscribers' latest activity. Here are three quick tips to help you make the most of the Recent Activity feature and, yes, they may also earn you the coveted nickname of Email Superhero around the office. Just go easy on the Bunn Brewmaster, okay?
Tip #1: Share your latest subscriber numbers in your next marketing meeting.
We all know Annoying Stat Dude. He's that guy in your life who inexplicably seems to know how many species of mosquitoes there are (roughly 2500, in case you care, and you don't, thanks). And while we pride ourselves on a firm anti-useless-facts stance, there's certainly something to be said for producing *useful* information at a moment's notice - for example, do you know how many people joined your email list during the month of May? Or last week?
With a click or two, the audience activity search shows you just that, which means *you* can show your colleagues how your email program grabs - and sustains - the interest of the people who shop in your store, visit your website or donate to your cause. And because it's right there when you log in, you can quickly pull up the latest numbers right before you head down the hall to a staff or marketing meeting (going the way that avoids Annoying Stat Dude's cubicle, of course).
Tip #2: Show your team which signup form is enticing the most subscribers.
There are probably a few places on your website where you might ask people to join your list - a home page, contact us page, company blog or resource library. If you're creating separate Emma-powered signup screens to embed in each location, the recent audience activity feature lets you view subscriber results by which signup form they used to join, so it's easy to see which location brings in the most new members. It's almost like setting up a cage death match between your signup screens, except there's no cage involved. Or death, really. Come to think of it, it's actually nothing at all like a cage death match.
Anyhoo, you can create identical forms for each page to compare *only* location, or you can change other factors to answer other burning, sign-up related questions. Would requiring folks to fill out just three fields instead of five make 'em more likely to sign up? Are people more interested in joining for a 10% off coupon or a free shipping code? And are cage death matches even legal? However you decide to test, you'll have an easy way to look at the results and share 'em with your team.
Tip #3: Update another database with subscription changes registered in Emma.
If you're storing information about your subscribers outside of Emma - in an in-house database or a CRM-style program, let's say - you may occasionally want to take the changes that have been registered in Emma and apply them to that other database. By running a quick search for people who've managed their preferences in the last 30 days, you can quickly export a monthly report to Excel, then import it into another system. That way, all your member information stays organized and orderly, and you and your team don't have to worry about multiple databases or multifaceted integration strategies or data silos, because, and we're just being honest here, all that stuff sounds kinda dull, especially the part about the silos.
Of course, if you're interested in full-on custom database integration, ask about our Web Services API or our soon-to-be-released integration with Salesforce.com.
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So, there you have it - a few ways our Recent Activity feature can make you an email marketing superhero. And if all this talk about recent audience activity has left you wondering how to see *more* activity, try these five tips for enticing folks to join your list.
Have a particularly heroic idea of your own to share? Feel free to send it our way, amigo...
Cheers,
Emma