Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again (Part 9)

Atomic Rewards

Atomic Rewards bring gamification to emails. They are micro-incentives to help marketers get attention, drive engagement, nudge behaviour and create habits. Think of Atomic Rewards as a loyalty program – linked with attention (time) rather than transactions (money). Atomic Rewards offer the perfect solution to Attention Recession; these rewards can be embedded in AMP-enabled emails or in Ems to reward streaks.

Atomic Rewards will work best when they are offered across brands because no single brand can offer enough to make it exciting. Rewards filling the email inbox is when we will get a mindset change from “delete” to “delight”. Atomic Rewards make perfect economic sense for brands – for a small cost, they can ensure the hotline to the customers stays active because if the customer becomes inactive or churns, the cost for the same attention will be many times higher via the adtech platforms.

Here are some of my past writings on Atomic Rewards (Microns are emails with rewards):

Microns and Loyalty: Gamifying and Rewarding Attention: “Adding elements of loyalty and gamification can make microns much more rewarding. Our attention has a lot of competition; if someone is willing to pay us for it, they have the potential to stand out. By disintermediating the media and ad platforms, brands can build a direct hotline to their customers, with the rewards working as magnets for visibility, engagement, actions and eventually, transactions.”

Imagining Mus: An Attention-Action Currency: “Mus are points that are earned by consumers for actions done in their engagement with brands. Initially, Mus are earned within microns: opening a micron, clicking a link, filling a survey, referrals to family and friends. Later, they could be extended beyond microns – clicking on SMSes or push notifications, downloading an app, completing a profile to share personal information with a brand, and so on. Mus are a transfer from a brand to consumers. Mus are thus earned by consumers. They can be spent on rewards or gifted to others. As the use of Mus expand, they can become currency – a medium of exchange.”

Stop Loss: The Power of Attention Messaging: “By ignoring the power of Attention Messaging, brands are missing a key chapter in their playbook. By spending almost 10X more on the acquisition of new customers than on retention and growth of existing customers, they are simply feeding the profit machines of the tech giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon). By not building deep relationships, they are leaving their customers open to being targeted and acquired by competition, thus leaving their own future vulnerable. Attention Messaging holds the secret for brands to create the twin moats of profits and monopoly.”

Atomic Rewards: The Solution to Attention Recession: “Attention and engagement are upstream of transactions. Brands have focused on rewarding transactions either through loyalty programs of their own or partnerships with credit card companies. But what has been missed (or ignored) is what comes before the transaction – our attention. This is where “atomic rewards” can be the game changer as the solution to attention recession…Attention and engagement need as much focus as marketers are doing with customer journeys, onsite and in-app experiences, and transactions. These Mu moments can be the secret to engineering profitable customers for life.”

Email2: Energising Engagement (Part 4): “Microns are emails (and can be any push message later) which have a micro-incentive for a micro-moment (an action to be performed by the recipient). These actions could be opening the email, clicking on a link, filling out a form in the email, answering a quiz, or just providing feedback. The subject line of the email uniquely identifies such an email, and the points earned are updated in the email footer. In my writings, I termed this concept of incentives as “Atomic Rewards” and called the points as “Mu” (µ). Microns are the carriers of Atomic Rewards. They are emails which gamify engagement…The big idea behind Atomic Rewards: to get customers to pay attention pay them for their attention. (Else one will pay Google and Facebook 100X more for them if they churn.)”

Constructing the µniverse: “µniverse exists in cyberspace. There is no single owner who decides, only rules that determine the actions. It is a two-sided marketplace, an exchange. It connects brands with their customers. Unlike the BigTech companies who play the role of intermediary and take a huge cut, µniverse simply enables a direct connection via its µ token as enabler.  It lies at the intersection of three worlds: gaming, loyalty, and crypto.”

Thinks 484

Daniel Pink on the fore “core regrets”: “Foundation regrets. Failures to be responsible, conscientious or prudent. Boldness regrets. The chances we didn’t take. Moral regrets. Deceiving, cheating, swindling, bullying. Connection regrets. Fractured, unrealised or neglected relationships.”

Thomas Sowell: “Seldom do people think things through foolishly. More often, they do not bother to think things through at all, so that even highly intelligent individuals can reach untenable conclusions because their brainpower means little if it is not deployed and applied.” [via CafeHayek]

WSJ: “Any experience offers “an opportunity to learn and grow if you choose to look for the lesson,” Mr. Novak writes in his new book, “Take Charge of You,” which he co-authored with Jason Goldsmith, a golf coach. Today Mr. [David] Novak uses the case of Crystal Pepsi as a cautionary tale about hubris: “I was too in love with my own idea, and I moved too fast on it.” He suspects that if he had taken time to listen to feedback from doubters, the soda would still be on the market today. When he teaches leadership—in his podcast, online courses, or at the Novak Leadership Institute he endowed at the University of Missouri, his alma mater—Mr. Novak believes it is important to talk about missteps. “People know how you’ve gotten your success, but they don’t know how you failed along the way,” he says.”

Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again (Part 8)

Ems (Microcontent and Stories)

Ems are short, informative emails which tell stories. They fit on a single mobile screen so customers know they don’t have to see an endless scroll. They offer something useful rather than just the usual promotional content. Ems also can tell continuing stories to keep recipients engaged. Above all, ems ensure that there is something new daily – thus increasing the brand’s mental availability. Media companies have perfected this: their emails reach our inbox at the same time daily to the extent that we start expecting them. Imagine if brand emails could elicit that same feeling!

Brands send 7-10 campaigns a month. Imagine if a brand could send an email daily which is delivered at the same time. Days when there is no campaign can become the days when Ems are sent. They can be identified in the Subject line with a special character (an epsilon, perhaps) which lets the customer know this is a short, informative email and will not need more than 15-30 seconds to consume. For every brand, it is possible to create relevant microcontent. Ems could also become games that help with recall of some brand attributes.

Here are some of my past writings on Ems (in the early writings I had termed Ems as Microns):

Microns and Brands: Made for Each Other: “Think of all the moments when we would like to get something and which are not leveraged by brands. A book I showed an interest in, a product I want to buy, an article I read, a movie that piqued my interest, a habit I want to develop, a person or idea I am keen to know more about, a concept I want to dig deeper into, a smartphone I just bought and whose features I want to understand. All of these are what I think of as “micron moments” – when a short duration micron subscription could be triggered to create a win-win for both brand and consumer, publisher and subscriber, sender and receiver.”

Microns: Theory and Economics: “Less can be more. Small can be big. Signal can and must overwhelm noise. That’s why microns which can be fully consumed in 15-30 seconds. Information-rich, permission-led microns can transform email communication. Think of microns as driving the minimalism revolution in brand-customer interactions…Microns can thus open up a new, unexplored world for marketers – long-term relationship building with informational content, going beyond the transactional and promotional mails with a focus on branding, and leveraging moments to trigger short-duration enriching engagements.”

Microns: Making B2C Emails Better: “Microns, by their very nature of being short and info-rich, are likely to have extremely high engagement – they will be read on arrival into the inbox. Every micron opened will lead to subsequent microns being delivered into the inbox because of the way the algorithms work. Microns can thus be used for something that email has not been used for – branding. By having emails delivered at a near-zero cost into the inbox, brands have an infinitely scalable opportunity to be in front of their current and prospective customers every day.”

Email2: Energising Engagement (Part 3): “Ems thus can become a utility in our lives – coming into the inbox at the same time, like emails from media sites. Most emails today are hard sells – buy this, see that. Ems, on the other hand, focus on attention and habit creation rather than the immediacy of pushing for a transaction. Ems can be the way brands build hotlines to their customers. They can be a great asset for reinforcing branding for existing customers. Ems create “email moments”.”

Thinks 483

Donald Boudreaux: “No one is, or can ever be, expert in redesigning or ‘resetting’ an economy (and, much less, redesigning or resetting the larger society). No one is, or can ever be, expert in repatriating supply-chains webs in ways that actually increase the economic prosperity and security of fellow citizens. No one is, or can ever be, expert in making society more diverse, equitable, and inclusive in a way that actually achieves greater harmony, social cooperation, and justice. No one is, or can ever be, expert in doing any of the many aspirational schemes that daily pour forth from the mouths of professors, pundits, and politicians – mouths attached to brains the ignorance of which is matched only by their arrogance.”

Business Standard: “The effect of the pandemic, as the employment surveys have demonstrated, is to speed up a problematic dynamic that threatens to derail India’s future. Regular employment decreases in size and scope, while demands for welfarist protection will grow louder. Politicians have an incentive to respond to the second and are not punished for ignoring the first. Over time, this will lead to a breakdown in the Indian growth machine and must be avoided.”

Marina Abramović: “I like the piece of advice I got from my professor of painting many, many years ago when he said to me, “If you’re drawing with your right hand and you become so good you can even make the drawing with closed eyes, immediately change to the left.” And then he said, “Never repeat yourself.” That’s the important thing.”

Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again (Part 7)

AMP (Interactive Emails)

AMP is a technology introduced by Google for making emails interactive. It enables the creation of microsites in emails. Think of AMP as enabling email apps. AMP is a big leap forward. It eliminates a click to the website or app for a wide range of use cases: filling a form, gathering feedback, scheduling appointments, showing live content, creating interactive games and collecting zero-party data. AMP makes email a two-way channel.

There have been two challenges so far which have limited AMP adoption. First, AMP emails are complex to create because of software that has to be written, meaning marketers need to add a new skill besides creative and design. Second, AMP is limited to the Gmail app and Chrome browser. It is not supported by Apple. As a result, in the developed markets, over half of recipients will not be able to view AMP emails. (A fallback design is there in every AMP email for non-AMP mail clients.) The situation is very different in countries like India where Gmail accounts for 85-90% of email lists.

The creation problem can be solved by the creation of AMP editors. (Netcore is also launching one shortly.) AMPlets which can be easily inserted into emails are another innovative solution. In fact, brands should consider creating an AMP-based interactive footer with multiple AMPlets. The client problem is a much harder one to address – but whether it is 50% or 90% of their base, brands should make use of it because the benefits in terms of attention and engagement are big.

Here are some of my past writings on AMP:

Microns and AMP: A Powerful Combo: “AMP gives email marketers the opportunity to transform the user experience. Emails can do so much more – forms, image galleries, product cards, games, dynamic data, and of course, quizzes. One has to really experience it to feel the possibilities and imagine a new future for emails… For the mission of “No Email Unopened”, AMP-enabled emails can be a huge enabler.”

Email2: Energising Engagement (Part 3): “AMP was introduced by Google a few years ago to make emails interactive. Think of web pages in the late 1990s, and you will get the idea! Actions can be taken within emails without having to click through to a web page or an app… The challenge in AMP is the cost of design and coding; the solution is to create templates which can be used by marketers with limited friction.”

Thinks 482

Advice on dealing with our inboxes from Dorie Clark :”Get clear on the decision or action that each message requires. A common reason we fail to respond to certain emails is that they require a sequence of steps (“I need to schedule a meeting with her, which means I need to send her my online calendar link, but first I need to update my scheduling tool with new available dates”). For each message, take time to understand what the next action step is—and if possible, do it then.”

Manuel Hinds: “As happened in the 1920s and 1930s, these populists have been extremely successful in attracting votes. Afraid of what they see, voters demand a strong, authoritarian leader to take care of them. The authoritarian leaders prey on the population’s fears. Their ultimate product is security, which they project with their self-assurance, their aggressiveness, and their authoritarianism. Such security, however, goes up in smoke once the essential liberties are surrendered to them.”

Emily Laber-Warren: “The 9-to-5 schedule should be the next pillar of work to fall..Flextime is an employee handbook buzzword, but in practice it is not widely used. Whereas some roles are legitimately time-dependent (teachers need to be at school in the morning), many are not. If more employers truly embraced flexible schedules and allowed employees to work at the times that are best for them, experts say, the benefits would be a healthier and more productive, creative and loyal work force.”

Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again (Part 6)

Hooked Score

Hooked Score shifts the focus from measuring just aggregate opens and clicks to (a) measuring stickiness and streaks, and (b) getting these metrics for individuals. It can thus create cohorts based on engagement intensity. A simple way to measure Hooked Score is to use a multi-point exponential moving average. This places greater importance on recent actions.

Streaks are very important for marketers but haven’t received adequate attention. The goal needs to be to ensure that every message sent is being read and engaged with. It means creating an email habit. If this is not being measured, marketers have no hope of improving it. The current focus is on campaigns – segmenting the email base and then sending out a common message to that base and then measuring the efficacy of that campaign. While the overall numbers are useful, marketers need to shift focus to thinking of their customer at the receiving end of the campaigns.

Here are some of my past writings on Hooked Score:

Martech’s Magicians: Microns, Micronbox and µniverse (Part 11): “One of the key objectives is to win the transaction upstream game. This means focusing on attention, engagement and habits. A simple way to measure this is to track all the actions that a customer does with the brand communications and properties.”

Email2: Energising Engagement (Part 6): “First, measure Hooked Score for all email subscribers. Also calculate aggregate, average, and median scores. This can also be done for the past 6 months to get a trendline of change. As a side project, Hooked Scores can also be correlated with CLV (customer lifetime value) for each customer. Second, a goal can now be set for the email engagement team. Let us say the target is to double the aggregate Hooked Score over a year, which means it needs to grow 6% monthly. The email engagement team can then make its own tasks: they could focus on reactivation of the inactive base (those with Hooked Score of 0) or do a branding series with existing customers to drive greater engagement. As another side project, the team can track changes in Hooked Score with NRR (Net Revenue Retention).”

Thinks 481

NYTimes latecomer’s guide to crypto.

Where Did Development Economics Go Wrong? Shruti Rajagopalan and Lant Pritchett discuss economic predictions, the problems with randomized controlled trials, Indian education and more. Pritchett: “I think the potential for redistribution to improve livelihoods is just radically overestimated for poor countries. One of the things about being poor is your economy tends to not be in the position to have the levers to generate large amounts of revenue. One way in which developed countries generate 40% of GDP in revenue is they have a large, formal, highly productive economy that, therefore, is easy to observe, easy to tax in relatively low-cost economic ways. That’s precisely what poor countries don’t have, so we should expect total revenue yield to be low as a fraction of GDP.”

WSJ: “To grasp why Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather has been so popular for 50 years, Al Pacino suggests starting at the film’s opening, when an immigrant father asks Don Vito Corleone for justice after the police have ignored an assault on his daughter. “Many people have felt that need throughout history, the feeling of being overlooked, neglected and abandoned,” says Pacino, who played the Don’s son Michael, via email. “That could be what attracted such a large audience: a godfather who will be there for you, who will help you, in a human way, in a family way.””

Email 2.0: Making Email Cool Again (Part 5)

Innovations

In multiple conversations I have had with marketers through the past months, two problems have stood out: rapidly rising customer acquisition cost (CAC) and the need for zero/first-party data. The outcome of increasing CAC is visible in the advertising revenues of Google, Meta, and Amazon, who together generated over $350 billion and are growing 30-40% growth rates. Brands are competing aggressively to acquire new customers and paying more and more each year for new customer acquisition. This is an arms race that will prove detrimental to brand profitability. The only way out is to build deep relationships with existing customers and reduce the wasteful spending (what I call “adwaste”) on reacquisition and wrong acquisition.

The first step brands need to take in building these deep relationships is to solve the problem of attention recession and build a “pipe” (hotline) to existing customers. This is where email comes in. Through the past two decades, it has been a great friend of marketers and continues to deliver the best RoI. Over the years, there have been improvements in the email experience: anti-spam filters have continuously improved to help cleanse the inbox of spam and unsolicited messages, and innovations like segmentation, personalization, BIMI, STO (send time optimisation), and SLO (subject line optimisation) on the back-end are all helping improve relevance.

But there is trouble in paradise. Email open rates hover in the 10% range for marketing (promotional) messages, which means 90% messages sent by brands are being ignored by their customers. New push messaging channels (RCS, SoIP and WhatsApp) are bringing interactivity and two-way engagement. Measurement challenges are rising in email with Apple’s privacy initiatives and image caching being done by both Apple’s email client and Gmail.

The big questions therefore are: can email step up to solve the marketer’s CAC and data challenges? What is the solution to attention recession? Can email improve engagement from its low rates? Can it serve as the base for a reliable pipe to enable brands to communicate reliably to their customer base? How can the email experience be modernised and made interactive? How is Email 2.0 different from Email 1.0?

It is this world of brand-customer engagement that Email 2.0 seeks to conquer. The starting point is to focus on Hooked Score as a metric to measure engagement intensity at an individual level, thus shifting the conversation from aggregate opens and clicks to stickiness and streaks. AMP makes emails dynamic, interactive and real-time by enabling apps and micro websites inside of emails. Ems combines microcontent and stories to make emails a daily utility in the lives of end customers and improve the mental availability of the brand. Atomic Rewards brings in gamification and micro-incentives to enable marketers to nudge customer behaviour. Progency (product-led agency) extends the internal brand execution team by combining product, professionals, and process to deliver KPIs and get paid based on performance. Taken together, these five innovations of Email 2.0 can engineer the habit revolution by making email cool again, enable marketers to cut wasteful adtech spending and collect more customer data, and enable CMOs improve revenues and profits.

Thinks 480

TIME magazine on Vitalik Buterin. “Nine years ago, Buterin dreamed up Ethereum as a way to leverage the blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin for all sorts of uses beyond currency. Since then, it has emerged as the bedrock layer of what advocates say will be a new, open-source, decentralized internet. Ether, the platform’s native currency, has become the second biggest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, powering a trillion-dollar ecosystem that rivals Visa in terms of the money it moves. Ethereum has brought thousands of unbanked people around the world into financial systems, allowed capital to flow unencumbered across borders, and provided the infrastructure for entrepreneurs to build all sorts of new products, from payment systems to prediction markets, digital swap meets to medical-research hubs.”

WSJ: ““Simulation participants kept telling me, in their own ways, that pre-feeling the future helped them pre-process the anxiety, the overwhelming uncertainty, and the sense of helplessness, so they could move faster to adapt and act resiliently when the future actually arrived,” Ms. Jane McGonigal writes in her new book, “Imaginable.”…. At a time when news stories regularly use the words “unimaginable” or “unthinkable” to describe our moment, she hopes her book’s “futures-thinking tools” will help readers feel less blindsided by what might be coming next…For the past 15 years, Ms. McGonigal has been inventing games that teach futures-thinking skills and collect insights into how people may respond to various scenarios. Armed with data on how players handled quarantining in the Superstruct game, for example, she cautioned religious leaders and party planners to shift to virtual gatherings as early as February 2020. But while Ms. McGonigal is glad her games have yielded some actionable intelligence on human behavior, her real goal is to “give individual participants a transformative experience,” she explains. “To me the result of a simulation is in the change in mind-set and readiness of players, the actions people start taking today.””

Lionel Shriver: “Inflation is a tax. Money for the government. A tax that people don’t see as a tax. That’s the best kind, for politicians.” [via CafeHayek]