Managing Customer Expectations via Email with John Lewis

my John Lewis Card Registration Email

Recently John Lewis opened a new store near me. Having made a couple of purchases there, it was obvious that there was a general push on the my John Lewis card.

For those of you who haven't come across the card, it is , in their words ' a membership card that helps us get to know more about you every time you shop, so that we can give you the rewards that are just right for you.'

Of course it's very similar in its approach to the my Waitrose card where the unique proposition is the free coffee and daily paper. my John Lewis offers free coffee and cake. ( Of course I now drive to Waitrose for my free coffee and paper en route to claiming my coffee and cake at John Lewis.)

Anyway, setting aside the arguments about the whole point of  membership/loyalty cards or whether or not they end up attracting the wrong sort of customers ( interesting piece from the Telegraph where Waitrose shoppers are complaining about Tesco customers just coming in for the free coffee), they handled it all rather well.

At the point of purchase I was offered a card. I was given a temporary card and was asked only for my email address as they scanned the bardcode. By the time I had left the store ( admittedly that did involve some coffee and cake time) I had an email in my inbox thanking me for starting the registration

Of course at this point they didn't have my name so Dear Customer is excused. What I really liked was the way in which they very simply explained what I needed to do to complete my registration. Simple as 1 2 3 really.

They covered all bases in terms of having a John Lewis account or not as well. And I checked, the membership number on the email matched my temporary one!

The experience reminded me of when I signed up top the SpaceNK membership programme and highlights the ever increasing multi-channel approach being taken by retailers especially where they have both a digital and physical presence

Full registration was confirmed with an email from John Lewis. Great looking email with lots of opportunities to drive me back to the John Lewis. Although I'm not quite sure how they managed to make the footer look so ugly and out of kilter!

What's In It For Me?

I came across this email sign up page for US company uncommon goods , and although I'm not keen on the branding and layout, it does seem to tick a few boxes when getting people to sign up for newsletters

What is the bare minimum you need to be able to send them an email ?



Value Exchange.
Give the subscriber a list of benefits to signing up.







What should I expect?
Let me see examples of previous newsletter













I also like this incentive banner from retailer JYSK. You see the value exchange to get you interested.
It would be interesting to see the conversion numbers in any test they did without the incentive, however, and subsequent purchases from subscribers

Where Do I Sign Up? 3

Or 'How do I start an Email Conversation?'

Where Do I Sign Up? talked about some best practice tips on making email registration easy, while Where Do I Sign Up? 2 highlighted some of the roads that can lead to registration.

I just want to look at the  post registration pages that show how different brand are confirming that you are now subscribed to their news letter or web service. I decided to look at the Top 10 Online Retailers in the UK based on the Experian Hitwise Research

Email Registration? What Email Registration?

Impossible to find for Apple - but that's Apple for you, playing by their own rules. Both John Lewis and  Play.com wanted me to create an account. Now I don't know how much effort that's going to be and as I only want your newsletter give me a break! 
It also shows that you are ignoring the number 1 channel for providing customers with offers. 77% of people in the Exact Target 2012 Channel Preference Study backed this up.

Simple Thank You

A truly appalling effort from M & S, in particular as they had made a very good attempt at offering a choice of newsletters to choose from

I'm assuming all Next customers are female. This is the image I got and I wasn't asked if I wanted male products or even if I was male.

Tesco did offer me a selection of newsletter variants of which I picked 2, but all I got was this

Argos went one better by telling me I would get my first email soon

Lack of relevance is the main reason people unsubscribe from your emails - and you've just walked straight into that bad habit either because you haven't tried to tailor my content or reflected my choices from the start. 45% of people unsubscribe because the content was not relevant to them ( Exact Target The Social Break Up)

Confirming Your Registration

ASOS?

And as I selected the Male variant, that was confirmed as well. This didn't get it's own page , however, just appearing at the bottom of the homepage so I could have easily missed it


I liked the Amazon version as it was linked to my account teling me how many newsletters I was signed up to, as well confirming the one I had just signed up to.

Nice touch with a link to other newsletters on offer again

Making Sure it hits your Inbox

Aside for the Experian list I recently registered for Minster FM's SoundCheck, a service that allows listeners essentially to influence what gets played on the station.

This was my registration confirmation page

Key Takes Outs

1. Creating an 'Account' sounds a bit like getting married when all I want is to to start to get to know you at this point in the relationship. So offering an email newsletter sounds like a much easier option
2. A simple thank you goes some way to starting the relationship but can certainly be improved upon
3. A Thank You page that has an image that has no relevance to me, isn't thanking me, its thanking them..the masses. Of course you're not going to help the case if you don't ask anything about me to start with. So ASOS beats Next. But  M & S  asked about me but then chose to ignore what they knew.
4. If you've offered me options in terms of Newsletters and possibly frequency of contact then why not confirm those choices on the Thank You page. It seems to make sense that you are setting my expectations at this point. Well done Amazon. Tesco please try harder
5. What next? Am I going to get an email from you ow? Tomorrow? Next week? Let me know !
6. Getting your newsletter into the Inbox. The customer has gone to some length to sign up. Wouldn't it be a shame if they never saw the email? The Minster FM example sets us off in the right direction as it tells us that an email is on its way and for me to look out for it. But why not add the email address its coming from as well to make sure it gets added to a contact list?
7. Did we forget to be social? Don't forget the option these days of using Social Sign In as a means of registering people for your newsletter and the benefits that can give you in terms of linking email and Social data. But what about even simply suggesting once they've registered for your newsletter that they also follow you on Facebook or Twitter?
8. Instant Rewards? You want them to buy something? Why now encourage them to start shopping now with a link to the main pages, or even with a little incentive?

Enough said...I'm off to unsubscribe from them all to see what happens!

DMA Email Event - Key Takes Outs

Luckily in the audience during my presentation at the DMA Email Winback Event was Email Marketing Expert, Kath Pay from Plan to Engage.

These were her key takes outs as Tweeted during the session

Thanks Kath!

@iamgfc device - use media queries to determine which device they're reading your emails on so as to deliver the correct version #dmaemail


@iamgfc in the real world you can read body language to see if they're interested in what your saying - apply this logic to email #dmaemail


@iamgfc timing - understand latency for your brand/product - maximize key moments of truth#dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc nothing lasts forever - understand the Lifecycle of your consumer. Consider timing content context and device #dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc they never got your email - ask for re-entering your address- preferable to dbl opt in for list growth purposes #dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc never active - I.e. competition subscribers. Value of these subscribers are different to your regular subscriber - think of ROI.


@iamgfc defining inactive - they were never active, never got your email, they never last forever#dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc defining inactives will differ if you're a client, an ESP or an ISP. Very true. #dmaemail@dmaemail


@iamgfc don't underestimate the power of a thank you email, that arrives in your inbox immediately#dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc important to meet expectations during subscribe process. Ask what other channels they'd like to hear from you #dmaemail @dmaemail


@iamgfc understand what your consumers are doing on a day 2 day basis so you can ensure your content is relevant @dmaemail #dmaemail


the conversation engineer @iamgfc is up now - how to keep the flame burning @dmaemail #dmaemail


You can follow Kath via @kathpay

Oh, and I'm @iamgfc by the way.

Love Me or Like Me...Just Follow Me

In a previous post I talked about best practice in terms of un-subscription pages. One of the suggestions was to give subscribers the opportunity to follow your brand via another channel such as Facebook or Twitter.


Of course ideally you don't want subscribers to un-subscribe, but what if you notice that they are not engaging with your emails? Should you try and head off the un-subscribe at the pass?


Recently I've not been opening my Habitat emails - not because I've fallen out of love with them, but just because I'm not buying for the house. They have spotted the lack of engagement and I received a very interesting email from them this morning. The subject line was 'Love Habitat? Like us on Facebook!' and the main image and copy looked like this

'We noticed you're not loving our emails, so why not like us on Facebook instead?'


I think this is a great example of using email engagement data to keep subscribers engaged with the brand..one way or another

Where do I sign up?

I was reading with interest a blog exchange on emailcritic.com between Marco Marini, the CEO of ClickMail Marketing and Jordie van Rijn, an independent email marketing consultant at EmailMonday and editor of Emailvendorselection.com.


They were essentially discussing the value of the sign up box to grow your lists organically using your website. As it picked up on some themes I talked about in ‘Why should I sign up to your newsletter’ on my blog, I thought I would share my Top 10 for the sign up process.


1. Make It Easy to find and do – ideally above the fold Top Right, but it’s worth testing this.
2. Provide only one newsletter subscription page that includes information about all available email newsletters
3. Clearly state when users have navigated to the newsletter sign-up process
4. Don’t pre-select any newsletters for users unless they have clicked on a link that named a specific newsletter
5. In multi-step processes, let users know how many steps remain
6. Explain the ‘value proposition’ – what’s in it for me?
7. Manage expectations – what will I get when and how often?
8. Have a clear Privacy Policy and if you use incentives - be transparent
9. Send a confirmation email, or maybe even the last newsletter – but tell the subscriber to look out for it
10. On the confirmation page / email get subscribers to add you to the contacts list!


Any other contenders ?