Add an Email Sign Up to Facebook

Posted by sheadbeck on June 25, 2009
Email, Social Marketing / No Comments

integrate-email-with-facebookAll of you have heard the mumble jumble about integrating email with social media. Well here is a quick way to get started > add an email sign-up page to your Facebook or MySpace (does that still exist?). While I was searching for a couple examples I only found that brands were linking to an off-facebook page to collect emails. This doesn’t make any sense to me considering how easy it was to do.

Because we use an ESP, it was even easier … ExactTarget offers a service called “web collect” where they enable you to place pre-written code anywhere on a site and begin collecting address. All you have to do is change you list id, error page and thank you page variables and you’re set.

The below guide is assuming you have basic HTML skills and knowledge of image hosting (as with your ESP)
To show how easy this is, here is a step-by-step how to:

  1. Log in to your ESP and create a unique list > I named mine Facebook > write the list ID down for future reference
  2. Open Dreamweaver and create a layout that is suitable to your brand and make sure it isn’t wider than 200px so you can move it to the left rail in a future step
  3. Use the ExactTarget web collect code to for the form
    • <form action=”http://cl.exct.net/subscribe.aspx?lid=ENTER LIST ID” name=”subscribeForm” method=”post”>
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”thx” value=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/SkyMall/67443103870″ />
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”err” value=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/SkyMall/67443103870″ />
    • <input type=”hidden” name=”MID” value=”ExactTarget Account #” />
  4. Since we don’t want the customer to leave the Facebook page as they were there for a reason > we set the confirmation page and the error page both to go back to our main page on Facebook
    • I’m sure there will be debate about that choice, but it’s the one I made
  5. After you have the code the way you want it > remove all the <head>, <title>, <meta> code just so you have your form and table code
  6. Now copy your code out of Dreamweaver
  7. Log in to your Facebook account > click on edit page > click on More Applications > then Browse More
    facebook-applications-fbml1
  8. Search for FBML > click on add to page
    add-fbml-to-facebook
  9. Go back to your “edit page” screen > and click on the pencil icon and click edit
  10. Now name the box and paste your code from Step  6 > Click Save
  11. You are almost done, now all you have to do is tell the sign-up page where to live.  Click on the Pencil again in you newly named “Name > FBML” box
    facbook-application-settings
  12. Because I recommend placing it in your left rail so people see it all the time. You need to click “add” next to “Box” and leave “Tab” off
  13. From here go back to the main page of your Facebook Brand Page and click on the Boxes tab > your newly created FBML sign up page will be there
  14. Click on the Pencil once again and click on “move to wall” > All Done!
    move-to-wall-facebook
  15. Take a look at our finished product.
    finished-facebook-sign-up

I know a few other ESP’s have the same type of “web collect” service so this can be used by anybody. Now do it to it.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to be our friend on Facebook > we are just starting out and slowly developing our strategy. So no judging only friending.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: , ,

Your Welcome Email is Weak

Posted by sheadbeck on June 05, 2009
Email / No Comments

Today I’m going to give you a little lesson in Welcome Emails. I am even going to capitalize Welcome Emails because I can.

The Email industry knows that it is a best practice to have a Welcome Email. We know that at my current employer and we have had our Welcome Email in place for over a year now, it has been pretty successful delivering decent revenue and great response rates. We have recently made a change to the layout and that alone has made a significant impact to the bottom line, I will share this with you but first let me set the stage on how our program is working. It’s pretty simple, however, many people don’t send Welcome Emails or if they do, they send plain/boring emails.

When do we send the Welcome Email?

There is debate on how soon you should send out the Welcome Email, some say wait 24 hours, some say send immediately, some say something else. Currently we do two things:

  1. We send out immediately if you sign up on the Web if you sign up in the designated “email sign-up” box.
  2. We wait for you to complete your order if you sign up for email during the checkout process online or through the call center, you do send you call center sign-ups Welcome Emails don’t you? Anyhow, that’s not the topic of this blog post.

What do we include in our Welcome Emails?

  1. Personalize with their name if you get it during the process
  2. Tell ‘em what they are going to get
  3. Instructi0ns on how to get more
  4. A forward to a friend link - it gets used
  5. A DISCOUNT - capture as many sales as you can immediately

Alright, enough already. Let me get to the point of the post. This post is to show you the optimal design for our Welcome Emails as a retailer. Below you will see the before and after screen shots as well as the prized metrics.

- - - - -

skymall-welcome-email-before-BEFORE

Paragraph layout, no pre-header offer, boring

  • Avg Revenue: $XX,XXX.XX
  • Avg. Sale: $130-ish
  • Open Rates: 35%
  • Click Through: 11%
  • Conversion: 11% (purchase/clicks)

As with anything, this could all be improved, we just need to tweak a few things test it out then let it roll…

- - - - -

skymall-welcome-email-after-copyAFTER

List style, pre-header, graphics, simple

  • Avg Revenue: Increased 30%
  • Avg. Sale: Increased 10%
  • Open Rates: Stayed the same
  • Click Through: Stayed the same
  • Conversion: Increased 3%

This was a very simple change. We just made it more “fun,” easier to read, added a pre-header showing the offer as the very first item. After testing we are now running the email full-time.

So as you can see, it is well worth your time to tweak your “auto” emails such as the Welcome Email from time to time. Take this for what you will, but just know it worked for me.

Which email do you like the best?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Peace out,

Shea

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: ,

Display All Wordpress Tags

Posted by sheadbeck on May 20, 2009
Social Marketing / No Comments

Here is a quick post to help people that may have the same problem I did when trying to make a page or widget to display all of my Wordpress tags as a list the same way you can display your Wordpress categories. I was working on a different site and couldn’t figure this out, the only support Wordpress provides for listing tags is to display the tag cloud. That’s fine and dandy but just not what I wanted.

Here it is, all you need to do is customize the arguments in the Wordpress tag cloud PHP code.

Take a look at the default which will give you the Web 2.0 tag cloud:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?>

Now take a look at my customization to display the tags as a list:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=12&largest=12&format=list&unit=px’); ?>

You can customize the list layout in your CSS or inline.

That’s all…peace out.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags:

« Previous Page