Hey Groupon. Thanks for fucking up email
In this guest post, Daniel Monheit warns that group deal overload is devaluing email marketing
Email marketing used to be fabulous. Back in the heady days of 2010, brands would work hard to build up well qualified databases, upon which they’d bestow carefully crafted correspondence filled with information, offers and incentives. The recipients, of course would be delighted: “Oh look! An email! From one of my favourite brands! And it’s 40 cents off at Woolies this week!”.
But that was before Groupon, Cudo, Living Social and the rest of their deal-a-day cronies came to town, bringing an onslaught of ‘hand picked special offer’ emails with them.
The average Australian is now waking up to more emails than they could ever hope to read, let alone action. By the time we’ve poured our morning cuppa, most of us have already ignored/deleted a dozen of them touting cut-price pedicures, two for one laser hair removal, $12 teeth whitening and all you can eat Nepalese food.
Logic dictates that the more emails we receive, the less attention we can give to each. Like so many mediums that have come before it, email is now cluttered beyond recognition.
But it’s not completely over. Switched on marketers can retain email as one of the sharpest, most effective tools in their arsenal – though it’s tougher than ever. Quality will always prevail, and the pointers below will help ensure that the daily deal posse don’t completely screw it up for the rest of us:
- Subject lines: The good news is, if you screw this up you’ve got nothing else to worry about. A subject line needs the same degree of attention and expertise you’d give the headline in a print ad– after all, they serve the same purpose. Call the value out up front, include calls to action and test, test, test.
- Content: Being helpful is always a winning formula. Include different sorts of content at the start, and then track what recipients are actually interacting with. Add more of the popular stuff, remove the bits nobody cares about, and watch your interaction levels (and ROI) skyrocket.
- Eyes on what’s next: Social media can hardly be considered ‘next’, with brands already clamouring over each other to ask fans about their new year’s resolutions, tips for cooking on a budget and who’s going to win the Grand Final. But with half of the world’s population on Facebook, there’s still plenty of room for brands to interact, engage and transact with consumers in this exciting, ever changing environment.
Until people realise that daily deals sites are an annoying, non-sustainable fad, the eDM zealots among us have certainly got our work cut out. In the mean time, we know that our inboxes will continue to be pummeled, and we need to keep one eye on the new opportunities turning up every day to keep our brands relevant.
- Daniel Monheit is director of strategy at Hard Hat Digital
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Next medium they’ll screw up: push messaging on smartphones. Unless they learn from their mistakes and try targeting a message for a change. Otherwise you can look forward to a phone screen cluttered with daily deals that ping you in the dead of night for pedicures from merchants an hour’s drive away.
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Are you serious? You are complaining that Groupon et al’s spam is clogging up user’s mailboxes so they can’t read YOUR spam? Let me grab you a violin…
Also I don’t know where you are pulling “But with half of the world’s population on Facebook,” from, as they haven’t reached 1 billion users yet, and with a global population approaching 7 billion, that’s obviously not half.
http://news.yahoo.com/facebook.....15205.html
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Yep, the daily flood of emails has definitely worked against what some of the better group-buyers have to offer. I only get the Groupon emails but getting two-four a day (separate product and travel emails), which promise to be location-specific but still offer teeth-whitening/massage etc in a different city, means I’m close to unsubscribing altogether.
Group buyers who pay attention to your second point about content would definitely see the benefits.
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From personal experience I can only agree.
After signing up to a bunch of daily deals I felt like I was getting hammered. So I unsubscribed from the lot of them, and also ‘cleaned up’ a bunch of other product/service related subscriptions on top of that.
Basically, daily deals put me off marketing emails altogether, bar the very few that I truly value and take the time to look closely at.
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By classifying all the daily deal sites as one huge conglomerate, out to attack our inboxes, the author fails to acknowledge that each site is a DIFFERENT company, and in order to be overwhelmed by these emails, one must first subscribe to EACH and every email. IF the person does not wish to be bombarded by these newsletters, simply don’t subscribe to them. Pretty simple!
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The quality of Mumbrella posts is really declining. This is one of the saddest commentaries I’ve come across in a while.
> Complaining that those eDMs clog up your inbox… Sorry, remind me: Were you forced into signing up or did you sign up yourself? If you dont like it, unsubscribe. Shouldnt be too hard… Personally, I get Groupon and Living Social. That’s all I need and is 3-4 emails in the morning. Doesnt take me too long to go through these.
> “Email marketing used to be fabulous.” In which world? Email marketing was never fabulous nor glamorous nor effective. At least brands have the opportunity to measure the effectiveness of campaigns through Daily Deal offers, plus they dont pay anything upfront. I think that’s great, but understand why the author differs…
Overall this is a poor post and just confirms the decreasing quality of Mumbrella. As the author is a Director of a Digital Agency, I recommend embracing Daily Deals as part of their marketing mix and stop whinging…
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Hi “Quality of Mumbrella”,
You are of course entitled to your view. I notice that you share it with “Sheree”, who posted six minutes before you did. From the same IP address.
Glad to hear that you get Groupon and Living Social and are happy with those, but as I also notice that the five times somebody has posted on Mumbrella from that IP address, it has been on the topic of group buying on each occasion. Got any affiliations that might be relevant to declare?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
The quality of Sheree’s comments posts is really declining. This is one of the saddest commentaries I’ve come across in a while.
Overall this is a poor comment and just confirms the decreasing quality of Sheree. I recommend they stop whinging…
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Just press SPAM if you didn’t subscribe.
I know what Daniel means though, these guys are the online equivalent of those shouty ads on 7, 9 and 10.
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Good post Daniel, although I think you have missed the glaringly obvious in your pointers e.g targeting.
Data/targeting is surely essential to provide relevant offers as this is where the group buying sites fail or continue to ignore with their spray and prey approach. As a bald male the last thing I want offered to me in my inbox each day is spa treatment, Keratin hair treatment (whatever the fcuk that is) and my nails polished.
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great to see someone finally labelling such sites what they truly are: ” annoying, non-sustainable fads”
there’s nothing new about loss leadership and email just allows this to occur in a larger scale
consumers will tire of it, as will advertisers, and it will become marginal or disappear
if the businesses were so great the founders wouldn’t have all been so keen to sell out
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Sheree is right. Over the last month I’ve been weeding out what I subscribed too, along with Facebook and Twitter “friends” to the ones that add value to my life. I’ve reduced the static noise in my life by 60%. Life is much better. If only I could have the same control over the junk mail in my letter box. Less is more.
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They wouldn’t keep doing it if it didn’t work. Not saying it’s well done, not saying they’re a template for email marketing that others should follow – but at some level it must work for them and give them a positive ROI. Probably because their subscribers aren’t especially interested in or connected with their brand to drive CTR as much as the price point of the offers.
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Living Social is funny.
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Email marketing is one of many multi channel ways of engaging eyeballs. Some companies do it very well (Aquabumps, as an example) Some very poorly indeed (GoDaddy as an example.)
The key is to give the subscribers what they signed up to receive. If you change it, or weken it, or overdo it, you can kiss goodbye your engagement, open rate and credibility.
I am stating the obvious here, however so many people seem tot hink that email is the be all and end all. it plays a part fo course.
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I agree that they send far too many emails, and have unsubscribed from all group buying/daily deals emails.
However I think a bigger problem with these sites is it’s damn near impossible to redeem the offers you purchase. I’ve purchased 3 times and couldn’t redeem any of them because the salons/restaurants were always booked or impossible to contact until the voucher expired. That’s fraud…
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I could – but that is beside the point.
> eDM – unsubscribe if you dont want it
> email marketing – was never fabulous
These are the two statements I make, both of which don’t have anything to do with any affiliations I might have.
However, having a Digital Agency comment Group Buying and expecting a quality review is foolish, which is why I find the quality of Mumbrella declining.
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for all the comments and feedback. @Michael, cheers for pointing out my poor maths skills.
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I get that sensational titles and hot topics make for an uplift in readers but come on. I dont go to Mumbrella for mixed up, poorly constructed and factually wrong editorial. As someone who has been in email for 12 years I have seen the ebb and flow of usage like the group buying sites many times. Just like the proliferation of promo and competition based marketing in online around 2005 this too will settle down – based on the results. The fact that email uses such strong metrics means the companies using it will adapt or die out as well.
And as others have stated, consumers can use their unsub or report spam buttons to express their views. Our Spam Act works very well in this regard.
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Nice one Daniel
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As an ardent online shopper and marketing professional, I have to agree that only a short time in to receiving online deals such as Groupon has made me lethargic for all email marketing.
Such a shame, as I used to get excited. There are just too many offers and they are just not that unique.
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Tim from Mumbrella,
Looking at the IP address of someone who legitimately calls an author up on a poorly written article and comparing it with the IP address of someone else who also calls them up on a poorly written article, does not make the article any less poorly written.
Nor do you actually address the points that were raised. I’ve seen the ‘we just looked at your IP addresses’ tactic on this site before, it’s getting tiresome.
‘Got any affiliations that might be relevant to declare?’
That I work for Groupon? I have no qualms admitting that. I manage the social community for them so I’m very aware of the power of social media. I just don’t think deliberately using the Groupon name and targeting them in the headline should go unnoticed, particularly as the author goes on to collectively speak of daily deal sites as one giant conglomerate and doesn’t specifically explain Groupon’s role in that, or why it deserves to be in the headline. Instead it’s a cheap tactic, knowing full well that the word alone will bring traction to the site thanks to keyword searches.
If the issue is, quite literally, the fact that people are receiving too many emails a day, the solution, quite simply, is to unsubscribe from the deal sites they have no interest in.
I actually cannot stress the simplicity of this point further.
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Hi Sheree,
Thanks for conceding that you work for Groupon.
My issue is that when you use phrases like “Personally, I get Groupon and Living Social. That’s all I need and is 3-4 emails in the morning. Doesnt take me too long to go through these,” you appear to be presenting yourself as a third party, not for somebody who works for the brand you are defending.
When there are two postings within six minutes from the same IP address presenting themselves as two different people, that’s the sort of suspicious behaviour which I do draw attention to. Particularly as in your most recent comment you appear to be defending the comments of “Quality of Mumbrella”. Or are you also conceding that this was you too?
On your suggestion that the use of Groupon headline in the article is a cheap SEO tactic, actually, it was simply the suggested headline from the writer of the piece who has nothing to gain from Mumbrella’s inbound search traffic.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Nice article Daniel. However, I want to clarify some of the comments here about spam. Those daily emails from the likes of Groupon and Living Social that clutter you inbox are not spam, this is because they are emails you have “opt-ed” into.
I know this is getting into semantics, but the proper definition is “bacn”, which covers “emails you want, but not right now”.
From a subscriber’s perspective, there are a lot of rules and triggers you can setup in your email browsers to sort out to the bacn and organise them into folders so that your primary inbox isn’t so cluttered.
From a marketer’s perspective, all of Daniel’s points are spot on. Emails need to be targeted better with more relevant and customised content. Also, cleaning out your database of inactive (people that haven’t interacted with your emails over long periods of time, not just bounces or unsubscribes) will do wonders for your results, especially from a deliverability perspective if you have a large database.
Optimising your emails for mobile readership is also key. With over 60% (according to Telstra) of the Australian population using a smart phone, it only makes sense to optimise your emails for such devices. Your readers will appreciate it.
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Well-written post and puts into words my exact sentiments of late. My inbox too seems to be constantly full of various daily deal offers however I accept that I did sign up to receive these. I also accept that doing so was a big mistake! Have unsubscribed from the email notifications and will check the various daily deal apps and/or social media channels instead. Agree with Fraser’s point that more relevant, targeted offers would be a better approach.
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Hi Tim,
”My issue is that when you use phrases like “Personally, I get Groupon and Living Social. That’s all I need and is 3-4 emails in the morning…,” you appear to be presenting yourself as a third party, not for somebody who works for the brand you are defending.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t say that. Perhaps you need to look at the comments again more closely? I don’t know who ‘Quality of Mumbrella’ is, and you have come to the conclusion rather quickly that we are the same person. I don’t see what I have to gain from posting two different comments from different usernames. I haven’t made any effort to cover up my name or deny that I work for Groupon. I don’t believe it’s entirely relevant to the point I was initially making, however I’m happy to supply such information when my credibility is called into question, simply because you have found the same IP address.
Perhaps the headline was the suggestion of the writer, however as the editor, looking at the rest of the article, it should become apparent that the headline is misleading. I don’t believe the author’s suggestion would override the common sense of the editor in this regard.
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Hi Sheree,
Happy to take your word for it that it wasn’t you. But somebody from the same IP adress as you did say that. You’ve now identified that as a Groupon IP address.
As I said before, if somebody from GroupOn presents themselves as an independent party when commenting on the issue, then that’s misleading enough that I’m comfortable calling them on it.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Love the healthy banter between you both – Great points either side!
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Sheree – you got caught out!
AND… nearly everyone here says they have stopped getting the emails because there was too many. How the hell do you only get four in the morning? I got four in morning, four in mid morning, four at lunch time,… etc etc… so i switched them all off… yours, and the others
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To the naysayers, you may have missed that this piece addresses two matters. How to keep your email marketing on track and the fatigue at the consumer end caused by the more poorly curated group buying voucher schemes.
Being an industry dinosaur, it reminds me of the early days of permission marketing, coupons and the birth of DM. Once the initial excitement of a stream of offers fades, regardless of being permission initiated, communications can be perceived as spam which results in the ‘unfollow’. I appreciate Dan’s reminders of how to make your eDMs continue to have relevance to subscribers.
As a marketing professional working with Social Media I – unsurprisingly – agree that this area is useful for sourcing opinion for refining offerings in a targeted environment. It is also a growing point of engagement, with users citing interaction with brands online as driven by interest in competitions and exclusive discounts from the businesses they traditionally support.
In monitoring social feeds I see that many of the early adopters of group buying deals are now frustrated and feel let down, sometimes cheated. Disengagement of voucher schemes is an emerging trend amongst social media users. One recent popular viral piece disparaged Groupon as “Food stamps for the middle class”.
Sometimes their disenchantment is a consequence of not being able to redeem vouchers or discovering businesses falsely inflating prices for coupon holders. The sentiment is that the offers are hollow, or that they have been scammed with no recourse. A number of Australian crowd sourced review aggregators in particular are reflecting this disatisfaction.
Unfortunately for some Loyalty Marketers this is spilling over into consumers removing themselves from brand eDM databases or using Facebook as their leading source of interaction instead. On Facebook they can now observe branded pages without ‘Liking’, avoiding brand updates in their feed.
Consumers increasingly have scope to remove any advertising and marketing approaches from their lives. To my mind this is an opportunity, a reason to improve branded communications based on customer feedback and behavioural trends.
Thank you Dan for reminding us of this.
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I think the only thing worse than Group On’s policy on Media is their policy on Spam.
I completely agree with Daniel (who wrote a very good article I thought) on Group On. They are truly making email marketing a nuisance. It isn’t that easy to unsubscribe, I’ve tried to do so at least 4 times by clicking the prescribed link but they still keep sending me the mails no matter how I try and shut them out.
I’ve actually dropped my Yahoo account simply because of GroupOn.
Given I worked in database marketing for ten years, here’s a tip to Sheree and Quality of Mumbrella. Look at your email Open Rate. If someone hasn’t opened the last ten emails…they re not going to open the next ten either. So, what I would do if I were you is send them a simple mail that asks if they d like to keep receiving Group On offers or you will proactively take them off the mailing list. That is an initiative I think a lot of people will appreciate.
Good writing Daniel and nice work Tim on the IP part – its social media 101 now to identify yourself if you’re commenting on behalf of a company.
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I had three group on this morning. Not sure why though. One was for a different state and the other two were for food, leisure etc. I auTomatically delete based on the title but if too scared to unsubscribe incase I miss out. I open one maybe one a fortnight of the subject grabs me. Just saying
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Sheree, when commenting online on matters that impact on your own organisation it is honest and ethical to clarify your affiliation. this supports both your organisation and yourself, giving you both greater credibility.
Ie (unofficial):
“I am Sheree and work for Groupon, but am responding unofficially as someone who uses email. I personally only subscribe to a few email lists and find it much easier to manage if I prune the ones I don’t need regularly. I do like receiving emails from Groupon (yes I know that sounds like an ad, but I am proud of the company I work for), LivingSocial and 3-4 other organisations.”
Or (official capacity)
“I am Sheree, Social Manager for Groupon. As an organisation we appreciate that people are busy and may receive many emails each day, as a result we’ve tried to make our emails as relevant and simple for people as possible.
We also try to make it easy for people to unsubscribe if they no longer want our emails.
We’d also love to hear suggestions on how we could make these emails even more useful to people.”
Remember that when you comment online on topics related to your company you can be more emotional about it (because it is important to you). There’s nothing wrong with this, but it is important to take some time, or have a second pair of eyes look over your comments before you unintentionally cause your organisation, and yourself, brand damage or embarrassment.
Your contribution can help or hurt your organisation, it all depends on your approach.
Cheers,
Craig
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@ Patrick – agree entirely with your comment: ” If someone hasn’t opened the last ten emails…they re not going to open the next ten either…. send them a simple mail that asks if they d like to keep receiving Group On offers or you will proactively take them off the mailing list.”
But the thing for these companies, and their resale/takeover/merger value is mainly database size – for other companies absolutely 100% quality databases are worth more every-time, couldn’t agree with you more.
However deal-a-day companies that solely act as a go-between and add nothing to the consumer process have no inherent value outside of database size – voluntarily reducing their database size directly equates to voluntarily reducing the value of their company. It’ll never happen – not while there’s so much fresh capital investment being pumped in from cashed up companies and wealthy investors.
Maybe in the future investors will get smarter and start asking for database quality, not just database size, but it isn’t there yet as the market is still fairly young.
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Hi Craig,
Thank you for telling me how to comment on articles and even going so far as to re-write my comment altogether in two different examples.
I don’t agree with you, however, because my initial comment was fairly straightforward, unprovocative and calling the author out on a very obvious point – something all readers of Mumbrella would be encouraged to do (I would hope so anyway, now I have my doubts). I would understand the need to preclude with my background if I were deliberately targeting the author, using slanderous language, deliberately provoking without contributing to debate, or even using my insider knowledge to refute these points. This was not the case.
Thanks to the unprofessional conclusion of the editor in subsequent comments, people soon began to associate my comment with the second commenter, which is highly false and misleading (much like the article itself, so it would seem apt). I was then deliberately accused of posting under a different name. Again, professionalism epitomised! The editor would have been better off simply addressing the points raised by the people who disagreed with the author, rather than relying on cheap and juvenile tactics.
So having seen it quickly descend into juvenile and rookie error territory, I decided to elaborate on my opinion and further highlight flaws to the article. In this instance, as I specifically mentioned Groupon in my second comment, I decided, for transparency’s sake, that I would clarify not only where I work, but also my position. I have no obligation whatsoever to do this, simply because the article has falsely (or deliberately?) used Groupon’s name in the title but when I am specifically referring to Groupon, I am happy to do so.
Cheers,
Sheree
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Sad to see group buying employees defending their soon to be non-existent jobs with ad hominem attacks on an industry professional who’s taken the time to write a decent opinion piece.
In every burgeoning field, there are professionals who lament the invasion of those who see the medium as a pump and dump strategy to get rich. When you pride yourself on attention to detail and have true interest in your work beyond the cash you can derive from it, it’s easy to get frustrated. I think Daniel sums up the opinion of incumbent industry professionals nicely.
It’s unsurprising to see “Sheree” et al of the Groupon IP cluster to apply their own industry cynicism to Daniel’s opinion. The difference being that Daniel likely speaks from the mind of someone who wants to keep working in a sustainable, relevant industry for a good while longer. This is obviously at odds with the scorched earth policy endemic to the group buying money scrum.
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This is entertaining – and has all the makings of a social media case (on how not to respond to media critique).
Sheree, read the Nestle case study – their response was similar to yours tonally.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....ial-media/
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If I was the boss of Groupon, I’d fire Sheree. Way to bring so much negativity to the Groupon brand
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Oh Sheree, thank you. You have given me the best “how to badly respond to Social Media’ case that I needed this week to show at work.
Seriously – if you’re in charge of Social Media at Groupon, it’s explaining a lot why we are all unsubscribing. It’s time to call your PR person for help.
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Hi Sheree,
No worries that you disagree with me, however I suggest you take a deep breath, step back and look at the comment thread impartially. You have been put on the defensive and discredited – due to your own actions, and your actions alone.
Your initial comment had valid points, however its impact was reduced by your lack of clarification on your affiliation – something which I think editors and journalists have every right to highlight, as they do in other channels where there are hidden vested interests.
When you recommended, you were defensive, yet aggressive, not understanding the significance of the concerns.
I totally accept that your heart in in the right place, and you had good intentions. However while we judge ourselves by our intentions, we judge others by their actions.
There’s many worse situations in social media than this one, it will blow over in a few weeks, however take it as a lesson on how to engage effectively – particularly where your audience will do the research – and you’ll avoid more significant, and career threatening, issues down the track.
Cheers,
Craig
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I agree with this article totally. I ended up on the Groupon sub list basically trying to get some more information on something some-one had sent me a link to. Fine, and I hit the un-subscribe link on the first one I got. Cool, but then I had to do it on the next one and the next one…. and the next one. The only thing that stopped it was a very very rude email sent in response to yet another Groupon ad….
It’s like the phone selling and the the to door selling that I completely block now because there was just too much. Thanks to this article for letting me know that it’s not just me and to Sheree for demonstrating the headspace behind it.
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“If the issue is, quite literally, the fact that people are receiving too many emails a day, the solution, quite simply, is to unsubscribe from the deal sites they have no interest in.”
I have interest in group buying emails, but not in receiving more than 1-2 email per day at most (as I’m sure most people are), particularly if I’m subscribed to 3 or 4 different daily deal emails. Quite simply, shouldn’t the daily deals companies be listening to feedback from their customers before everyone unsubscribes? You are right that you CAN subscribe if you like, but this “if you don’t like it, unsubscribe” attitude is concerning because, from a business perspective, at the end of the day this is losing potential sales. The unsubscribe button should be available for people who no longer find your emails relevant, but encouraging people to simply unsubscribe if they don’t like the frequency of the emails, well I just find that a little odd when a better solution (in my humble opinion) would be to review your strategy.
To Wei Tan: Just because somebody opts-in to to receive emails/info/marketing doesn’t mean a company can send multiple emails per day without repercussions – regardless of whether or not it’s legitimately classed as spam, the customers may regard it as such.
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@Littlewing: Oh, I totally agree. Just because you have someone’s consent to send emails to them, doesn’t mean you have license to inundate them to multiple “irrelevant” emails.
I think however, relevancy is the thing to keep in mind. If the content is relevant and presents real value to the recipient, the recipient probably wouldn’t mind receiving multiple emails. However, this is rarely ever the case with high-frequency mail outs. Very few organisations take the time to really analyse their data, instead they subscribe to the “shotgun / pray and spray” tactics.
It’s important to go back to your analytics and query your database for inactives (bacn). Search for those recipients that haven’t opened your email for the past few months (this largely depends on how frequent you send your campaigns). If your analytics are showing you that your recipients are not interacting with your emails through the lack of opens or click throughs – all you’re achieving is list fatigue. These recipients need to be isolated and treated differently.
This is always going to be a problem with these types of communications and more effort needs take place to implement better targeting and content creation. The old adage of “quality over quantity” still holds true, especially in email marketing.
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Sheree you’ve got some great advice from Craig – take it. The email draft he recommended works and would have solved the issue in a day. Usually advice like that comes at $150 (if not more) an hour.
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for people who like daily deals, but hate the volume of email try ‘Deal Fetch’, one email a day grouping all the deal companies.
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Hi Tim,
Like many readers i have to admit i found the banter between you and the Sheree from groupon to be rather entertaining although it has to be said that as the debate continued it became increasingly clear that you were in the wrong on this one – at least in my ever-so humble opinion. And for the record i can happily state i have zero connection with any group buying sites – i do work in the media industry however (as im sure most of your readers would) but as these comments have nothing to do with my role there so i dont see any reason to be any more specific – i hope thats ok with you.
The mumbrella site currently supports the ability for readers to comment without sign-in or identity verification. This is a choice you have made (most likely due to your desire to minimise any barriers to entering these conversations and thus ensuring a fluid and free channel for opinion. Such a set-up is always bound to issues with IP and i would advise against using it as the sole means of trying to ‘pin a comment’ on someone. Lacking any other evidence i think it only fair to take Sheree at face value and accept her assertion that the other comments questioning the quality of mumbrella were made by someone else. Of course this person almost certainly also works for groupon but thats beside the point – if you want a conversation where people are unable to comment anonymously – then do something about it – you cant have it both ways. To be honest i also think that its somewhat improper to even publicly disclose which comments on a site like this do share an IP address but thats probably opening a can of worms.
In any event – there are situations when a person should as best practice disclose their commercial background – in particular when there is a clear conflict of interest or statement of supposed fact that leave the intention of these comments open to attack – in this case though it seems to have been a simple (and rather logical) opinion regarding a persons choice to unsubscribe from a service they no longer see value in.
To stubbornly defend your stance on this – and to even further rub salt through more twitter feeds seems to somewhat juvenile.
Sorry for calling it as i see it. Otherwise love the site.
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Hi PODCC (If I may call you that),
I take your point entirely. The issue remains that somebody from what Sheree later identified as a GroupOn IP address made a comment which tended to mislead readers as being independent when it wasn’t.
I’m more than happy for anonymous comment. “I work at a group buying company…” would be mroe than enough, rather than pretending to be a consumer. The point where we step in regarding IP addresses is where to not do so would tend to lead to our audience being misled.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
‘Email marketing used to be fabulous’…. When?
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Tim – the readers of this site are not stupid.
There is no risk of anyone on this site fooling us into thinking they are a consumer. This is an industry site, so we know that many of the comments on here need to be taken with a grain of salt (or sometimes a bucket) because industry commentary is rarely done objectively.
Im with PODCC on this one, either ask people to log in, or stop the childish ‘i know who you are’ comments.
In my experience dodgy comments on a website usually get sorted out by the community themselves without any need for big brother to step in.
Maybe its time for a new moderation policy???
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The issue of email targeting and relevance can be solved by aggregation services, the best example being Yipit.com in the US. People’s tastes can be learned, their geographic location taken into account, and only one email sent each day that contains the most relevant deals for that particular person. A number of Australian startups are tackling this space right now (I am co-founder of one of these – DealFetch.com.au). In the end the consumer has the choice; they can unsubscribe from any or all of these services if they wish.
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I’m just going to nerd out for a minute and skip the drama of the above comments.
I have to admit it.
I love the groupon copywriting.
Have you ever actually READ the emails? They’re funny. Or at least smirk-worthy. Kind of like a Simpsons plot, they usually start off about something completely different before taking a 180 and introducing the product.
And yes, 99% of the stuff I don’t need. But I don’t really mind because it’s got more toungue in cheek than most of the other spam I receive.
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Wondering how many IP’s coming from cudo.com.au and cousins.
Whereas email or not, group buying is the biggest scam online just after Nigerian emails.
Regardless, what Dan writes/speaks I (usually) agree.
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What the author of this article fails to really recognise is that
1. All Australian email marketing lists are opt-in. The group buying email newsletter recipients have *chosen* to receive these emails. If not, this article should be about something more serious
and, by definition
2. If inboxes are “clogged”, the recipient can *unsubscribe*.
It’s that simple.
These emails are annoying? Annoying to who? You? Is it because you can’t get your message through to these people? They’re not noticing all the effort you’ve put into segmentation, copywriting, design and testing? Boohoo
Maybe you’re talking to the wrong people?
If you wanted to cry about how ineffective your own email marketing campaigns are then, congrats, you’ve got that message through very clearly.
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Am I the only one who finds the tone of the deal proponents and “just unsubscribe idiot” people to be boorish and rude?
Any Internet veteran can identify these people as the “cry some more” type who disrespect the argument by flinging insults to supplement their argument. Rather than belittling the personality of their opponents, it might be pertinent to address potential solutions to email fatigue.
I imagine they treat their consumers with the same level of disrespect as their detractors.
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Bit harsh Ed, don’t you think.
And no it isn’t as simple as clicking on a box to unsubscribe from Group On. They keep sending you the emails anyway regardless. Guess, they ll stop after the IPO.
And yes the emails are annoying to more than the writer. They’re annoying to me too as well. Some basic courtesy is required by this category which isn’t giving it at the moment.
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I do not work in the industry as yet (though I am a student, consumer and a mum). However there should always be the truth of when commenting about an issue in relation to where you are working (and especially commenting from workplace equipment including using the IP address), that you should state where you come from. Lets be honest how would you feel if someone was bagging about the company you work for then to find out they come from a rival competitor. This industry has at times received flac from poor judgement. Put it this way I know enough about these “daily special deals” sites that I steer clear of them!!
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Jeez, you would have to be fairly hard core marketer to have the hide to say out loud in public that Sheree’s dishonest and slimy comment was somehow taking the high ground. Post OZ Day. C’mon. Why shouldn’t the site expose dishonest commenters. It would be fairly obvious to anyone that the call was correct.
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I love this comment trail. Couple of things. I subscribed to a single Goupon email and ended getting several a day. That is not what I signed up for and therefore is, in my opinion, spam. Second, no question Sheree should have identified herself right from the start. She looks duplicitous, emotional and defensive.
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Sheree – SHUT UP
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To be fair at least Sheree has made it clear exactly who she is, however badly she has handled this. You can’t call her slimy and dishonest on those grounds. She has obviously convinced herself that Groupon has an ethical and sustainable business model and consequently has treated this article as an affront to the no doubt great work she is doing. I think we should leave her alone.
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@Ed, sure Australian marketing lists require an opt-in, but I wouldn’t say receiving a ridiculous amount of emails is a choice.
If you want to purchase a deal on a group buying site, you can only do so by subscribing first (that’s true with all the ones I’ve used anyway).
So I feel that people aren’t signing up to 4 emails per company per day, they’re signing up for a specific deal and then getting the emails as an unwanted bonus.
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Before Christmas I removed myself from all group buying email lists and some others because it was simply too much to manage. I felt like a slave to the email.
There’s only so many Thai massages, Teeth Whitening and RSL meals one person can use.
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Best Social Manager ever.
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On another issue altogether – why the need for the offensive language? And in the title too? You can say what you want without needing offensive language. It does not lend weight to an argument. In my experience it merely looks like the writer is stuck…well for words.
#justsaying
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Firstly,
1. I do work in online media
2. I don’t work for group buying
3. I am not a lawyer
Question A: Do sites that record the IP addresses of visitors who post comments need to tell people they do that at thepoint when people are posting?
Question B: Do sites that record the IP addresses of visitors who post comments and then use them to check whether multiple postings are from the same address need to tell people they do that?
Just curious.
Matt
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Hi Matt,
In ouir case, we state in our privacy policy: “Our system automatically captures the IP address of those who post comments. We reserve the right in circumstances such as attempts to mislead other users about a poster’s identity or the posting of defamatory comments, to share that information. Please note, anonymously posting comments does not in Focal Attractions’ view confer the status of protected confidential journalistic source.”
You can find our policy here: https://mumbrella.com.au/privacy-policy
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
unsubscribe
it’s not frigging hard – from someone professing to work in the industry to complain about receiving an email they have signed up for is more than a little silly really.
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I think the author’s point is fair, and a few comments here illustrate that some have missed the point.
I don’t view the issue in the article as ‘unsubscribing’. The issue of email noise is directed at marketeers and provides hints on how to get their campaigns back on track and over the noise of same-same-but-different eNewsletters (the author is merely using Groupon et-al as examples – good examples if you ask me, regardless of whether those examples are being “utilised” in the article’s title or not – perhaps not a great ploy but I bet it works!).
Just sayin’.
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If the content is exactly on the money to the subscribed parties (who have opted to receive the email). If the frequency suits the recipient. If the recipient is managing their various email subscriptions orderly, then you might have some value in gaining engagement from an email. It is a fine line, some are very effective, others are not.
Rule 101: do not send an email to somebody initially. You have to offer great value so somebody subscribes.
Once subscribed: do not piss them off = don’t take the piss.
It is amazing how so many big brands and institutions get it so wrong!
Oh, please make it easy to unsubscribe!
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P.s poor senders have given email a bad name. Email too, as a business mechanism, is overused and bogs workers down (non workers too).
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If his company managed the email marketing initiatives for the fastest growing company in history or any other serious daily deals player, he may have some credibility in the space, oh and BTW Mr I don’t Like Change and Have No Fuck’n Idea What I’m Talking About; there is an unsubscribe link on the email… press it! You don’t deserve to reap a win outcome from these communications.
His ignorance of the triangulated win strategy of the daily deal company, offering company and end consumer sees his views blinded by old school relevance that is key to most non daily deal vertical organisations. Relevance in the daily deal space is a purely fluid variable where subscribers will engage and convert not only based on their attributes and preferences but also based on the attributes and preferences of all other people in their life network that may have need for the offer being presented… God forbid a subscriber may purchase for a loved one, relative, co-worker etc.
Bring back the fax machine MOFO then complain they are fucking up out forests!
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Daniel i’ve always liked your words. But I dunno about this one – my open rates are still as normal as ever. Infact, I think I check my email more often now – i’m quite interested in checking out the latest offers whilst i’m on the loo 🙂
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All about the mobile -it means email gets checked constantly
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Unsubscribe and just add the apps to your iphone. You get to look what’s on offer when and if you have time. It would help if every emai wasn’t dupliated.
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Good luck in your next WIP Sheree, but chances are you guys don’t have them because you’re too busy sending out a gizzilion emails featuring cheap (bad) haircuts and Keratin treatments that make your hair fall out (thanks Judena Taylor Salon in Bondi).
I do see your point though, if you don’t want the emails, unsubscribe. So I have from all.
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After reading this you inspired me to unsubscribe from ALL those marketing emails – ahhh what a good feeling… I’m sick to death of deleting 20+ emails before I’ve even left the house in the morning.
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Groupon sucks, eDM sucks. What kind of marketing model other than email would be considered “successful” with a 2% penetration?
It took me six months for Groupon’s unsubscribe function actually *work* and it depresses me that UI work for a company where some of our marketers thing bombarding our customers with “product updates” via email is a good thing.
The more you write, the less they read. Stop it, all of you!
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I think this discussion’s just resulted in more email than what Groupon sends me. Fortunately it’s more entertaining, and valuable
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Agree totally with Daniel and Anonymous. Groupon bombarded my inbox with irrelevant offers and unsubscribing has been unsuccessful on many occasions. As a result I have unsubsribed from all Daily Deal sites and now just go to http://www.allthedeals.com.au/ to get all the bargains in one place if and when I want them.
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Spammers arguing with spammers about the value of their respective spam. You people are shockers.
This is why we have such useful tools as spam detection, torrentz and adblockplus, to keep the advertising industry off of our interwebs, improving it by a factor of super.
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